By Asrar Ahmad for TwoCircles.net,
Forbesganj: He kept the local police outside the village. He didn’t talk to the media. And unlike other political leaders, he didn’t call the victims and villagers to a ground to hear their woes. Rather, entering the Bhajanpur village this Friday noon, Rahul Gandhi went straight to the homes of the victims.
Congress youth icon Gandhi visited the homes of all four persons who were killed by the state police in this village under Forbesganj block in Araria district on June 3 – three Fridays ago. The four who fell to the state bullet were: Md Mustafa Ansari (18 yrs), Shazmina Khatoon (27 yrs, five-month pregnant), Sahil Ansari @ Naushad (6 months) and Mukhtar Ansari (22 yrs). Rahul visited their homes one by one and met the family members. He assured them of justice.
Rahul also visited the homes of the injured and talked to them. Nine people including some children were wounded with bullets. Among them seven-year-old Manzoor Ansari was critically injured. The police bullets had gone past kissing his neck. Some nerves were burnt and damaged and he was struck with paralysis. After getting treatment at Patna’s PMCH for three weeks his father seeing not much improvement has taken him back to the village as he can’t afford higher medical treatment. Rahul Gandhi met him and his father Aley Rasool Ansari, Imam of the local mosque, and asked the family to take the kid to Delhi. He assured full assistance. Gandhi spent about two hours in this poor village.
He was accompanied by Bihar Congress president Mahboob Ali Qaiser and Araria Congress leader Shakil Ahmed Khan.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has announced a judicial probe into the firing, but has not suspended any police officer involved in the firing, nor has announced compensation for the victims.
Manzoor Ansari being treated in ICU at PMCH/b>
Kumar’s JDU-BJP government had given a huge plot of land adjacent to the village of Bhajanpur to a company owned by some BJP politicians. The company usurped the old approach road of the village. They didn’t heed to their demand and when on June 3 some villagers came out to protest against the blockade of the road, they were fired from point blank range. All those killed got bullets in their head, neck, chest and waist. Ironically, the entire plot was once owned by the villagers.
(Asrar Ahmad is a freelance journalist based in Araria. He can be contacted at [email protected])