Magisterial inquiry ordered into Bihar police firing

Magisterial inquiry ordered into Bihar police firing
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

PATNA, AUG 20: Patna district magistrate, Amit Khare, has ordered a magisterial inquiry by the district education office into the police-firing and other related incidents at Imamganj where bodies of three students were recovered from a rivulet near Bedauli high school yesterday after Friday's police firing on a rampaging mob of students.

Khare said the magisterial inquiry would go into the circumstances leading to the police-firing and the lathi-charge, besides the sequence of incidents that took place after the People's War Group (PWG) actvists held a jan adalat inside the Bedauli High School to punish a student, Ravindra Kumar, on August ten on the complaint that Kumar had misbehaved with a girl-student.

As tension mounted with angry villagers and students setting the Imamganj police picket on fire in protest against the alleged unprovoked police-firing on students and recovery of bodies of three students, the district administration had decided to remove the Imamganj police picket under Palliganj police station in Patna district with immediate effect, senior police superintendent, Sunil Kumar, said.

Kumar said stern action would be taken against the policemen if any lapses were found on their part in connection with the incidents.

He said the relatives of the deceased whose bodies were recovered from the rivulet could file a case with the police.

Kumar described the situation as ``tense but well under control''.

Tension started mounting in the Imamganj police area following the recovery of bodies of three students yesterday from the rivulet. The three were missing after Friday's police-firing on a mob of students protesting against the alleged assault of a student Ravindra Kumar by the PWG activists.

Friday's firing led to a stampede in which six students fell into a nearby rivulet and three of them managed to swim to safety.

The All India Students' Association (AISA) has given a call for Jehanabad bandh today in protest against the alleged brutality of the police.

The district administration has announced compensation of Rs 10,000 to guardians of each of the students who got drowned in the rivulet after the firing.