‘Hang Tejashwi if he’s found guilty in Purnia leader’s murder case’

PATNA: The murder of a Mahadalit and former RJD leader, Shakti Kumar Mallik, in Purnia on Sunday has stirred up a political storm in poll-bound Bihar. The leaders of the ruling alliance and those from the opposition camp have started trading charges against each other apparently in a bid to make the incident an election issue.
Barely hours after deputy chief minister (CM) Sushil Kumar Modi fired a volley of questions on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the leaders of Left parties for their silence on the Purnia leader’s killing, Vaibhav Walia, national secretary of the grand old party, tweeted, “Is Rahul Gandhi handling the law and order situation in Bihar for which he should be blamed?”
Taking a dig at the Mahagathbandhan, which accepted RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as the CM face of the opposition, SuMo had said, “I would like to know from Rahul Gandhi and the leaders of the Left parties if they still accept Tejashwi as their leader, who has been made a named accused in the Shakti Mallik murder case.”
He added, “Leaders like Rahul Gandhi would be doing politics only after ascertaining the caste, creed, religion and gender of the victims.The RJD, whose leaders Tejashwi and Tej Pratap were among the six named accused in the case, will have to pay a heavy price for getting the Dalit leader killed.”
JD (U) spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad asked, “Who will deny the fact that CM Nitish Kumar rid Bihar of the RJD’s jungle raj and established the rule of law?”
RJD leaders defended Tejashwi, now the official CM candidate of the Mahagathbandhan. While the party’s national vice president Shivanand Tiwari demanded a CBI probe into the incident, Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha alleged that Tejashwi and Tej Pratap were being implicated in the case for political reasons.
Tiwari said he would urge Nitish to ask his party leaders not to make any remarks about the leader of opposition till the investigation into the murder case was complete.
Jha, on the other hand, asserted that Tejashwi should be hanged if he was found guilty in the case, but “making someone a scapegoat out of political vendetta is not a good sign”.
Meanwhile, a senior police officer, who is associated with the probe, said the slain leader’s maid, Rita Devi, had lodged a case with the K-Haat police station in Purnia on September 7, accusing him of threatening her and her family members with dire consequences for demanding wages for work.
Mallik, his second wife, Khushboo Devi, and close associates, Raja Kumar and Nand Kishore, were booked under sections 450, 354(B), 323 and 506 of the IPC. His clout could be gauged from the fact that he had built a palatial building on government land adjacent to the official bungalows of the DIG, SP and DDC in Purnia’s posh locality.
Authoritative sources said Mallik’s father was an employee of the local municipality then.