Condemning the police firing at Bagaha that claimed the lives of six Tharu tribals earlier this week, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Thursday demanded that the state government pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to their kin within a week.
He also threatened to sit on a 24 hour dharna if the demand for higher compensation was not met but did not specify the date. The Nitish Kumar government had earlier announced Rs four lakh compensation to the kin of each victim. Modi, who visited Katharwa village with a BJP fact-finding team on Wednesday, said that not only the victims of the Bagaha police firing, but also those of Forbesganj, Madhubani and Jai Nagar or anywhere else in Bihar, should be given Rs 10 lakh compensation.
He claimed that Kumar had turned down his plea for compensation to Forbesganj police firing incident two years ago in which four persons of minority community were killed. The senior BJP leader, who was the deputy chief minister in the erstwhile NDA government till recently, assailed the police for resorting to 'unprovoked' firing to quell a mob of mostly women and children who were agitating to demand for arrest of the killers of a fellow tribal youth at Bagaha two weeks ago.
"The protesters did not use weapons against the police or indulge in arson of public property. Yet the policemen fired on the mob killing six of them and injuring about 30 others when hardly eight to ten policemen sustained minor injuries during stone pelting by the protesters," he said.
Modi alleged that the police had fabricated false charge against the protesters at Bagaha and demanded constitution of a medical board to find out the exact nature of injuries sustained by the policemen. Those responsible for firing on the tribal protesters should instead be arrested and tried under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
Describing the Bagaha police firing incident as the 'biggest' such incident in the past eight years going by the number of casualties, the BJP leader lambasted the Nitish Kumar government for being oblivious to the deteriorating law and order situation in Bihar.
The chief minister, he alleged, appeared to be more concerned with ensuring the survival of his government than the plight of the people. "The chief minister has restricted himself to an one-point agenda - that's to ensure survival of his minority government by hook or crook," Modi said and added that Kumar holding charge of as many as 23 departments spoke volumes about the inertia of the state government.
The state government cannot be run by one person, Modi quipped.
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