LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Dumka, Sept 5: Thousands of activists, mostly students, belonging to different tribal organisations took to the streets today to enforce day long Bandh to protest the killing of a minor tribal girl who was found hanging from a tree in Muffassil police station area on Friday.
The activists who were armed with traditional weapons moved around the town in different groups raising slogans against the Hemant Soren government and blocked the entry points to prevent vehicular movement altogether and held demonstrations demanding death sentence for the accused who has been arrested earlier and provide compensation to the bereaved family.
Moreover, thousands of commercial and passenger vehicles have been stranded along the roads approaching the town and the bypass Ring road as commuters faced considerable inconvenience owing to the road blockades.
Protesters have not been allowing even police vehicles to cross the vehicles from either side of the spots of road blockades at half dozen spots.
Instance of heated altercation between cops and protesters was witnessed at Sriamra along the Ringroad where the body of the deceased was strung up with a tree who was allegedly killed before hanged by the accused belonging to the interfaith community having violated her for months on pretext of marrying her.
The cops who were taking the family members of the deceased to a team of the national commission for protection of child rights (NCPCR) from Raneshwar had to ultimately get them off from the vehicle owing to the protesters’ rigidity.
This is for the second time when the sub capital town witnessed the outburst of the rage that gripped them following subsequent incidents of the brutalising minor girls including the previous one of setting a blaze a local schoolgirl by a youth belonging to the same community in retaliation against her denial to have an affair with him.
A team of the NCPCR led by its chairperson Priyank Kanoongo has arrived to take stock of both the incidents having hogged the national limelight, which would also interact with administrative stakeholders including deputy commissioner Ravishankar Shukla and the SP Ambar Lakda.
Today’s Dumka Bandh is also being supported by different Hindu rightwing organisations.
