ATTROCITIES AGAINST SCHEDULED CASTES: BIHAR
On 4th Feb., 2018; Two days after the attack on its Bakhri MLA Upendra Paswan in Begusarai district, RJD tried to corner the JD(U)-BJP coalition government by raising the issue of alleged “rise in the cases of atrocities on scheduled caste (SC) people” and “deterioration in law and order scenario”. “Law and order in the state has deteriorated since the day Nitish Kumar realigned with the BJP and formed an ‘unusual alliance’ with the saffron party in July last year. The cases of attack on the members of mahadalit and backward communities have registered a rise in the last six months. People from SC community are being specially targeted and murdered. RJD MLA and former minister Shiv Chandra Ram was addressing the party’s sit-in programme which was organised to protest the Friday night attack on Paswan’s house. The MLA said Paswan was attacked while he was sitting at his home. “The manner in which a gang of armed miscreants made a murderous attack on an elected representative has exposed the Nitish government’s tall claims of good governance,” Ram said.
Paswan was at his residence at Kumharso village in Begusarai district on the evening of 2nd Feb., 2018, when two motorcycle-borne miscreants fired three bullets, police said. Though the MLA escaped unhurt, his supporter Naval Kishore Sahni, headmaster of a local school, who was seated beside him, received bullet injuries in his stomach and was admitted to a private hospital in the district. Besides Ram, hundreds of RJD workers, including six party MLAs, were part of the sit-in programme in Gardanibagh area of the city and berated the JD(U)-BJP coalition government for allegedly “failing to maintain law and order”. Prominent among those at the sit-in were RJD legislators Rajendra Ram, Prema Choudhary, Subedar Das, Vir Prakash, Samata Devi, Rekha Paswan, party’s women cell chief Abha Lata, former MLA Sudhanshu Shekhar Bhaskar and party’s EBC cell chief Rambali Singh Chandravanshi.
Earlier on 3rd Feb., 2018, Begusarai district police arrested three people in connection with Friday’s firing incident. Begusarai SP Aditya Kumar said that before opening fire at the MLA’s house, the miscreants had fired indiscriminately near a petrol pump at Kumharso, injuring one Sanjiv Kumar Mahto, a resident of Alauli village in Khagaria district.
A day after the attack on Paswan, a delegation of the RJD seniors led by its state president Ram Chandra Purbey on Saturday met Bihar DGP P K Thakur in the police headquarters here and submitted a memorandum alleging that the party’s legislators were being attacked “at the behest of our detractors who are wary of the public support the RJD enjoys”.
The delegation also demanded a bullet-proof car along with escort vehicles and adequate deployment of security personnel for the leader of opposition in Assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who is scheduled to begin his statewide “Nyay yatra” from February 12.
By- Nikita Goel, Convener, Student Reporter Committee, INBA