Forbesganj firing: Ram Vilas Paswan meets PM, demands CBI enquiry Submitted by admin3 on 22 June 2011 - 6:52pm

Indian Muslim By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net, New Delhi: Ram Vilas Paswan, MP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) Supremo today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and demanded a CBI enquiry into the Forbesganj pol ice firing. The PM assured the delegation that he will ask the Home Minister P C hidambaram to look into the matter. On 3rd June 2011, residents of Rampur and Bhajanpur villages under Forbesganj bl ock in Araria district came out, after Juma Prayer, to protest against blockade of the connecting road between the two villages for a factory. The police not on ly opened fire on the protestors but chased them to their homes and killed four people including a pregnant woman and a seven-month-old infant. Ram Vilas Paswan addressing media after meeting the PM, here seen with LJP MP Sa bir Ali (first from R) and LJP general secretary Abdul Khaliq Giving the details of the police firing to the PM, Paswan demanded that the centr al government should order an enquiry into the whole incident so that guilty off icers of Bihar government are punished for the gross misuse of power and violati on of human rights. Paswan also told Dr. Singh that the NDA government in Bihar is terrorizing and sc arring the Muslim community on a planned and systematic basis and thereby vitiat ing the communal harmony in the state. Recounting several instances of harassment, torture and killing of members from the minority community in the state, the former Steel Minster told the PM that, W e fear that the NDA Govt. in Bihar is moving in a dangerous direction to replica te Gujarat. Later talking to TwoCircles.net over phone Paswan said that the state BJP is doin g all preparations to replicate Gujarat in Bihar. For instance the party is raki ng up the issue of Bangladeshi Muslims because the state shares its border with Bangladesh and most of the bordering districts are populated by the minority com munity. Talking about the Forbesganj incident Paswan said that the lack of sensitivity o f the Nitish Kumar led Bihar government can be seen from the fact that despite t he occurrence of these serious human rights violations no cabinet minister visit ed the site. Chief Minister instead went to China, he added. When asked for his reaction over the alleged statement of JD (U) national presid ent Sharad Yadav where Yadav had expressed disapproval of the Bihar government's decision to order a judicial probe into Forbesganj, which Yadav thought might d eter industrialists from setting up factories in Bihar, Paswan said that, I am no t aware of any statement made by Sharad Yadav. Talking to TCN Sabir Ali, MP LJP said that we have demanded that SP and SDO who w ere present at the time of firing should be suspended and removed from the distr ict so that free and fearless inquiry could be conducted. There are ground reports that the local MLA Zakir Hussain is trying to save Gari ma Malick, the SP, who was present on the spot when the brutal violation of huma n rights happened. When asked about this Sabir Ali rejected the allegation saying

that I dont know what is going on behind the curtain but as far as the official pa rty line is concerned we want both the SP and the SDO to be booked for murder ch arges. The LJP has also demanded SP and SDO to be booked under the 302 of IPC for murde r. Other demands include compensation of 20 lakhs each for dead and 5 lakhs each fo r injured and a government job for one member of the deceased family. The delega tion also wants the road connecting the two villages, being used for over 50 yea rs, to be reopened and made available for the poor villagers. Share