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New Delhi, 6 June 2012: Nitish Kumar’s decision to order a CBI probe into the killing of Brahmeswar Singh is yet another glaring instance of his government’s completely one-sided and blinkered outlook. There have been several major cases in recent past on which there had been loud demands seeking CBI probe and the government never paid any heed. And now the same government which had disbanded the Amir Das commission of inquiry to probe the political links of Ranveer Sena has announced a CBI probe into the killing of Brahmeswar Singh, the main accused in dozens of barbaric massacres. |
At least on five major occasions in recent past – including two major corruption cases, the treasury fraud case and the BIADA land allotment scam; one shocking case of police brutality (in Forbesganj on 3 June 2011, which killed four innocent Muslims), and two recent political murders, those of Bhaiyaram Yadav, CPI(ML)’s Rohtas District Secretary, in Nasriganj on 14 March 2012 and Devendra Singh alias Chhotu Kushwaha, the mukhiya of Sonhatthu Panchayat in Haspura block of Aurangabad district, on 29 March 2012 – large sections of people in Bihar and almost the entire opposition have demanded CBI probe. The government has rejected each of those demands, even ridiculing the very idea saying it has become fashionable for an agenda-less opposition to demand CBI probes.
Now that Nitish Kumar has ordered CBI probe into the killing of Brahmeshwar Singh while categorically ignoring the demands for CBI probe into Forbesganj police firing and the killings of Bhaiyaram Yadav and Chhotu Kushwaha, the government will have to explain what prompted it to go for CBI in one case and reject it in all these other cases. Bhaiyaram Yadav and Chhotu Kushwaha were political leaders without any criminal antecedents and the thousands of people who demonstrated after these killings did not indulge in the kind of vandalism that Ranveer Sena men were allowed to do. Surely that cannot be the ground for not ordering CBI probe into these incidents. Nitish Kumar who swears by transparency and good governance owes an urgent answer to the people of Bihar.
The least the government of Bihar must do is to order CBI probe into Forbesganj firing and the killings of Bhaiyaram Yadav and Chhotu Kushwaha. The CPI(ML) calls upon the people of Bihar and every crusader for justice and defender of democracy to bring pressure to bear upon the Nitish Kumar government to adopt even-handed standards.
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