By TCN Staff Reporter,
Patna: Claiming that the Forbesganj police firing was well-planned and a result of a larger conspiracy, Opposition leaders alleged that Bihar government is following the footsteps of Gujarat government to kill and terrorize the Muslims by using the police forces.
The leaders demanded that the judicial commission should also inquire into the role of Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, BJP MLC Ashok Agarwal and Forbesganj SDO Giriwar Dayal Singh. The leaders also demanded compensation of Rs. 10 lakh and a government job to one member of each family of victims.
“Prior to the incident, the Deputy Chief Minister had visited Araria district on May 29 and ordered the district administration to block the path used by the villagers for the factory of starch and glucose being set up by BJP MLC Ashok Agarwal, a close to Sushil Kumar Modi” alleged LJP Chief Ram Vilas Paswan.
Mr. Paswan, along with Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui and RJD general secretary Ramkripal Yadav, was addressing a joint press conference of RJD and LJP yesterday after returning from Bhajanpur village of Forbesganj in Araria where six Muslims were killed and several others injured in police firing on June 3 when they were protesting against blocking of the road for an upcoming factory of glucose.
Abdul Bari Siddiqui said that the incident reminded the brutal genocide of the 2002 Gujarat riots targeting the minority community. He said that five days on for the killing but no arrest has been made till now which exposed the hidden agenda of the government against the Muslims.
“The incident horrified the area and snatched the loved ones of the poor families but, leave alone the Chief Minister, neither any minister nor any MLA or MP found time to visit affected village and express the solidarity with victims’ families. What does it mean except that the government is working on BJP’s anti-Muslim agenda?” Siddiqui said.
He said that among those killed were a six-month old infant and a ten-year old boy along with a pregnant woman. “This shows the brutality of the police upon Muslims under NDA government” Siddiqui said.
Speaking on the occasion, Ramkripal Yadav informed that the party has written to National Human Rights Commission to investigate the firing and look into the involvement of Ashok Agrawal and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi in the case.
While echoing the demand of compensation for the family of victims, Congress state president Chaudhry Mehboob Ali Kaiser also demanded that murder case should be lodged against Araria DM, SP, DSP as well as SDO of Forbesganj.
A fact-finding team of Congress Party visited the affected area and submitted a report to Mr. Chaudhry. He demanded the cancellation of the land allotment to the Auro Sundaram International Private Limited Company that blocked the road for villagers. “BJP MLC Ashok Agarwal is all in all of the company who used his political power to oppress the villagers who were demanding road used by them for years” he said.
A team of CPI members led by Avdhesh Kumar also visited the area. The party demanded immediate action against the guilty police officers as well as those politicians who are involved in the unfortunate incident anyway.
It also alleged that incident was carried out by BJP MLC with the help of local administration but due to pressure of BJP, Bihar government failed to take action against guilty and also did not announce compensation for the victims’ families.