M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, June 23: The Barwadih police in Latehar district arrested and remanded in judicial custody 7 people, including a woman on Thursday in almost a day-long scuffle with them, who were out to grab a chunk of the government’s Gairmajarua land at village Ledgai, under the Barwadih police station.
The Barwadih police had not the least inkling of backlash from the land grabbers when it ordered the land grabbers to stop usurping the government’s Gairmajarua land, but unheeded, the land grabbers continued to build structures on the occupied Gairmajarua land illegally and unlawfully, forcing the police to detain one of the land grabbers whom the police wanted to bring back to the Barwadih police station. Here it was the flash point.
The land grabbers most violently resisted and reacted to the detention of one of them and not only prevented the police from taking down their detained man to the police station, but they engaged in a unilateral fight with the police using their fists, lathis, stones, badly roughing-up the officer-in-charge of the Barwadih police station, Srinivas Singh and his police personnel.
The land grabbers had unleashed a reign of fury taking law into their hands. A young woman of the group of land grabbers was most aggressive and belligerent when she almost bayed for the honour and life of the officer-in-charge, who was given the worst of the raw treatment.
Sources said, as the team of the police was small which was badly outnumbered by the land grabbers and their men, the police did a wise thing by showing extreme restraint and returned to the police station to tackle the land grabbers with a more precise move.
Latehar SP Anjani Anjan said, “On hearing of this, I sent reinforcements from the Manika and Chhipadohar police stations to the Barwadih police, and then the police started a round-up of the land grabbers who again tried to create ugly scenes which were dealt with a very firm hand then”. He further said, “We rounded up seven land grabbers. They had done major offences like making a bid on the lives of the police officials, preventing them from discharging their duties, threatening public order, holding unlawful assemblage of people, inciting each other to harm the honour of the police, looting government Gairmajarua land etc.”
“We have given them a salutary lesson that they will never forget in their lives. Our actions will come as a deterrent to others too. No one is any big and bold to take the law into hands and make a bid on the life of the policemen,” thundered the SP on the phone last night.
Six cops were hurt by the land grabbers, including a lady cop. All the six injured were treated at the community health centre, Barwadih. “One had a head injury. The other two are suspected cases of fractures in bones. Stitches were given on the head. The officer-in-charge had cuts and bleeding lips, probably hit hard by fists. There were signs of injuries from the cops by stoning at them,” said the doctor-on-duty Dr Anupamaa Ekka. She said two of the six injured cops have been referred to the MMCH Daltonganj for higher treatment.
Circle Officer (CO) of the Barwadih, Anchal Rakesh Sahay said, “One Tulsi Bhuiyan had petitioned the SP against grabbing of land by Tulsi Yadav and his men. The SP accordingly asked the OC Barwadih police station to take action. On Thursday, I too went with the OC Barwadih and his team to the disputed site.”
“There was a blatant usurping of the government’s Gairmajarua land by Tulsi Yadav and his clan. The Yadavs here run a private school. They were forcibly and shamelessly annexing the government’s Gairmajarua land on the pretext of the declaration of the Gram Sabha in their favour which was simply absurd and thoughtless. Police tried to stop it. It enraged and infuriated them like anything. Their anger was totally unjust as they were wrong and doing offences by grabbing the government’s Gairmajarua land. The Yadavs brought all the hell on the police force,” said the CO.
SP Anjani Anjan said, “Police acted with utmost restraint despite extreme provocations by the land grabbers.”
On being asked if the local police failed to anticipate or apprehend the situation may turn for worse to which Anjani Anjan said, “Where such complaints about land reach police, we do remain careful within the ambit of law but here, the land grabbers had diabolical design and were hell-bent on taking on the police which the police thwarted lawfully after the initial jerk and blow that the land grabbers gave to the police.”
