Four cops charged with murder for Bagaha firing

 Bowing to public ire and the ongoing protests for the last three days against police firing in Bagaha, in which seven tribals were gunned down, the Nitish Kumar regime in Bihar eventually slapped murder charges on a DSP and four inspectors present at the incident site.

An FIR was lodged at Naurangia police station against them where DSP Shailesh Kumar, inspectors Vinay Singh, D N Jha, Vinay Kumar and D Qazi were named accused under Sections 302 and 307 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 27 of the Arms Act. Besides, 100 other junior policemen were also named accused.

The police opened fire on an unruly mob which was protesting against the alleged kidnapping and killing of a youth in Bagaha in West Champaran. This resulted in killing of seven villagers.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, taking cognisance of the incident, ordered an inquiry which is being conducted by ADG (Law and Order) S K Bhardwaj, who is also in charge of police headquarters, and IG (Prisons) Anand Kishore.

Enraged over the police attempt to cook up stories and hush up the matter, the Left parties, including the CPI, CPM, CPI-ML, SUCI, Forward Bloc and the AISF, on Thursday enforced Bihar bandh which evoked mixed response across the State. Incidentally, the BJP extended its moral support to the Left-led bandh.

“Nitish has been, of late, claiming to be a self-styled messiah of the minorities, poor dalits, tribals and backwards. But neither he went to Forbesganj, where Muslims died in police firing, nor he deemed it fit to visit Bagaha,” alleged CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, before courting arrest here on Thursday.

Elsewhere, his supporters ‘painted the town red’ with party flags.