By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Bhajanpur, Forbesganj: Innocent, really innocent were they. They didn’t know that bullets can kill or they were sure police can’t open fire on them. When the news about the police firing spread like wildfire several children went there to see. They came under the indiscriminate police firing but were lucky that they survived.
Bibi Talemoon Khatoon (14) was among those children. On 3rd June, when she heard about the firing she along with many children went there to see. State bullets touched many of them, some wounded seriously, some escaped with a scratch.
“It was Friday. There were many children on the village side of the national highway bridge (which separates the village from the factory). I was one of them. The police bullet went past touching my back,” says Talemoon.
“She had gone there to see the firing. Many children had gone there. She had a scratch of the bullet,” says her mother. Talemoon has five sisters and three brothers. Her father Md. Zaheer is a laborer.
Salamat was more lucky. Twenty-year-old laborer was also near the bridge when the police bullet went past touching his forehead. The wound is clearly visible. “I was there on the village side of the bridge when the police opened fire,” says the boy.
Among the seriously wounded is 7-year-old Manzoor Ansari. The state bullet hit his neck. He is being treated in Patna.
“When he heard about the crowd he went there to see it. The police bullet hit him in the neck. He is being treated in Patna,” says Farzana, Manzoor’s elder sister.
Besides the children, elderly people were also became victim of the police firing.
Md Ibadul Ansari, whose home comes first when one enters the village, was also wounded in the police firing. A bullet pierced his thigh and went out. After Friday prayer and lunch he was sleeping. He got up with the noise. When he went out to see what has happened he was hit in the thigh.
“After Friday Prayer I had lunch and went to sleep. I woke up when I heard the noise. When I went out to see a bullet entered my thigh and exited from other side. I fainted,” recalls Ibadul, 55.
Police had opened rain of fire. People ran screaming towards the west, he says.
Ibadul was treated at government hospital and now he is being treated by village doctor. He is so poor that he can’t pay to the doctor. “I am poor. I have promised the doctor that I will pay him when I earn after I fully recover,” Ibadul tells TCN. He has not got a penny from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Even ten days after the firing, not a single police officer has been suspended and not a penny has been given to any victim.
Nitish last year had cancelled his scheduled dinner for BJP top brass in protest against publication of the image wherein he was shown shaking hands with Narendra Modi. That was election time and his action was to show he was secular.
[Videos shot by Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net]