Eight years on, police firing still haunts Forbesganj villagers

BHAJANPUR (FORBESGANJ): The residents of Muslim-dominated Bhajanpur village near Forbesganj in Araria Lok Sabha constituency have their wounds still fresh in their minds even after eight years of the police firing in which four persons, including an 8-month-old, had been killed on June 3, 2011. Araria will go to the polls on April 23.
Police had opened fire in a clash with locals protesting over the construction of boundary wall of a factory in the village situated along the Araria-Madhepura stretch of NH-27.Around 35 persons were also injured in the incident.
Rehana Khatun shows the bullet mark on her right hand in which she was carrying her eight months old baby, who was killed in the firing. “I was coming from a nearby hospital where I had taken my baby for vaccination. I was moving on the same road which we had been using for years to come to our village. But the factory owners were constructing a wall on that road. I saw policemen clashing with the locals. I thought I would make my way out of it, but one bullet pierced through my right hand and hit my baby, who died,” Rehana said with tears in her eyes.
A note on the visit of a National Commission for Minorities (NCM) delegation in July, 2011 states that 37 acres of the 120 acres of land acquired by the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) were allotted for setting up of industries, including the Auro Sundaram factory. The report stated that villagers had reservation about acquisition of their land and blocking the pathway, which was a government road.
It further stated that M/s Auro Sundaram International blocked the access routes both to the block office and Bhajanpur village. Villagers were protesting against construction of a boundary wall which would block their lifeline as it was the only direct route to the main road, workplaces and also to the market, hospital and Jama Masjid.
“After Friday prayers around 2.15pm, the villagers proceeded to demolish the wall. At 4.30pm, police reached the spot and opened fire, killing four persons, including an infant, a woman in her family way and two young men who were the sole breadwinners for their families,” the NCM report reads.
The then SP, Garima Malik, had told the NCM team that police were forced to open fire in self-defence after the locals attacked them.
Md Fatkan Ansari of Bhajanpur said, “The villagers had demolished a portion of the wall following which police arrived and started firing. One home guard jawan fired four bullets on my son and jumped over his dead body,” a sobbing Ansari told TOI.
A report by a judicial commission for inquiry on the firing incident was tabled in the state Assembly on April 4, 2016. The one- man inquiry commission found serious lapses on the part of the district administration and police in handling the situation and indicted the then Araria DM M Saravanan for not taking the matter seriously and “showing personal interest to resolve the dispute”.
Most villagers in Bhajanpur belong to Ansari community and are marginal farmers and labourers, except for those running small businesses like paan and small grocery kiosks in the village after acquisition of their land.
Md Tafil Ansari, who lost his brother in the firing, claimed that the state government had assured job to one person of each the family of the deceased, but it never happened. “Instead of getting government support, more than 50 people from the village are accused in a case filed by the factory owners over the incident,” Ansari rued.
The villagers also claimed that neither CM Nitish Kumar nor PM Narendra Modi ever came to the village, though incarcerated RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Congress president Rahul Gandhi had visited them after the incident. Also, none of the candidates in the fray in the ongoing Lok Sabha election have visited the village.
“The state government paid Rs3 lakh to the parents of each child killed but no ex gratia amount was paid to the kin of other deceased. Elections are here but not even a single political leader has visited our village. The chief minister has also never visited us, as if we are not people of this state,” said sexagenarian Md Zafir.