SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 21: The Dhanbad district administration has ordered a magisterial probe of CISF firing in which four alleged coal thieves were shot dead and two injured critically at Benidih coal siding of Block-2 of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) under Baghmara police station, around 32 km away from the district headquarters on the intervening night of Saturday-Sunday.
According to the officials, two Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel were also injured in the clash.
Now, Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sandip Singh has issued a notification for a magisterial investigation of the incident under the chairmanship of ADM law and order. SDM Dhanbad is another member of the probe committee.
On the directive of the DC, an inquest and postmortem of the deceased were conducted in the late evening of Sunday at Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College Hospital (SNMMCH) as per the guidelines of the Human Right Commission.
As per the official report, the incident occurred between 11.45 pm-1.20 am on November 19 -20 in which four suspected coal thieves were shot dead on the spot while two sustained bullet injuries. Two CISF personnel were also injured in a coal thieves attack.
The DC ordered a magisterial probe after getting a report from CISF DIG Vinay Kajla and Dhanbad senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sanjiv Kumar on Sunday evening. The SSP also announced that an SIT would be constituted to investigate the incident.
Brushing aside the earlier reports, CISF DIG Vinay Kajla said that CISF personnel fired in self-defence to stop the coal thefts when the thieves in large numbers attacked them after being stopped.
The CISF and police have also seized 21 bikes on the clash site on which thieves had come to pilfer coal in the siding but escaped leaving the vehicles behind.
After this, the CISF has lodged an FIR in the Baghmara police station against 100 unknown coal thieves for attacking them at coal siding.
