RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Nov.26: It took Jharkhand police six long years to admit that a person, who was made an accused in an FIR registered after firing on a farmer’s rally at Hazaribagh on August 14, 2015, sustained bullet injuries.
The situation came when the injured, Mantu Soni, knocked the door of Jharkhand High Court submitting that police falsely implicated him in the case registered after firing on farmers and left no stone unturned to prove him guilty.
The high court admitted the matter for hearing and directed the police to file a counter affidavit. As police filed a counter affidavit in the court, the fact which was suppressed for more than six years, resurfaced.
Soni, through his lawyer, Abhishek Krishna Gupta, submitted that though he was a victim, police treated him as an accused and in order to prove the accusation right, they hid his injury at the time of filing the chargesheet. They never took any statements from the people involved in his treatment.
Soni in his petition has demanded his acquittal in the case and proper legal action against the erring officials from the then officer-in-charge of Barkagaon police station to the then-superintendent of police Akhilesh Jha beside the administrative officers involved in taking wrong action against him.
He confirmed the development saying that the police in the high court got exposed. “The police, who have filed a charge sheet in the case, said the investigation is still going on.”
He further said, “The matter will be heard in the court of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi on December 9.”
Mantu had taken two bullets on his left chest and arm when police opened fire. As the injury was suppressed, no proper investigation could take place in the matter to ascertain whether it was fired by police or someone hiding in the rally with firearms.
On August 14, 2015, six people were injured in the firing. The farmers had taken out a rally to protest against land acquisition by the NTPC for a coal mining project in Brakagaon.
