|
 Patna,
Nov 1 :Anant Singh, a top leader of Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U), was
Thursday sent to jail till Nov 13 after he and his supporters thrashed two journalists
who had come to interview him and then attacked several more media persons when
they protested the first attack.
As
political parties condemned the brazen assault, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ordered
the administration to act -- albeit five hours late. The police arrested Anant
Singh and four others including his personal and official bodyguards. The
chief judicial magistrate here sent Anant Singh, who is seen as a terror in Bihar
and who faces over two dozen criminal cases including those of murder, to Patna's
Beur Jail until Nov 13. It
all began when NDTV journalist Prakash Singh and his cameraman Habib Ali went
to Anant Singh's house for his reaction to allegations that he had raped and murdered
a young woman, Reshma Khatoon. The
woman had sent a letter to the chief minister, police officials and media persons
before her death, accusing Anant Singh, his associate Mukesh Singh and a bodyguard
of the legislator of raping her. Prakash
Singh and Habib Ali said they were held hostage for two hours and mercilessly
beaten by Anant Singh and his men. Both men were later rushed to a hospital. "Anant
Singh beat us mercilessly and also abused us," a shaken Prakash Singh later
said. According
to witnesses, when other journalists marched to Anant Singh's residence to denounce
the incident, they too came under attack. The
journalists said Anant Singh's men poured out of his house and beat them with
bamboo sticks. As the journalists fled, they were stoned. Some supporters of Anant
Singh fired warning shots in the air. As
news of the attack spread, Nitish Kumar - who has always considered Anant Singh
a confidant - became incommunicado. He later said he would ask the Central Bureau
of Investigation (CBI) to probe the rape-cum-murder allegation against the JD-U
legislator. In
her letter to Nitish Kumar, Reshma, in her early 20s, had alleged that she faced
danger to her life. Reshma's
brother told a TV channel that his sister was raped and killed by Anant Singh.
He claimed that the legislator had told him that his sister's body had been dumped
at Patel Nagar, a middle-class locality. The
police later recovered the body of a young woman, suspected to be of Reshma, stuffed
in a sack from the area. Deputy
Inspector General of Police Sunil Kumar said Anant Singh and his men had been
arrested under non-bailable sections of the Indian Penal Code. He
refused to answer when asked why it took so long to take action against the legislator.
Anant Singh,
a legislator from Mokama, is known as 'Chhote Sarkar' in the area.In 2004, he
had brandished an AK-47 rifle in public. The
murder of Reshma and the later assault on journalists sent shockwaves in Bihar. Former
chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Rabri Devi, wife of Railway
Minister Lalu Prasad, earlier demanded the arrest of Anant Singh. The RJD has
called a strike in Bihar Saturday. The
Congress, the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist and the Lok Janshakti
Party promptly expressed support to the RJD-sponsored strike. In
New Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a member of the Bihar government,
condemned the attack on journalists. BJP
spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said: "We condemn the attack. Freedom of the
press is the soul of democracy. The BJP demands strict action against the guilty."
Comment Comments... Let
the CBI look into it. There might be a possibility that after Reshma Khatoon was
trapped, she might have contacted the RJD people, who would have instructd her
to write the letter to the CM and then they would have got her killed. Just a
possibility. Therefore, the CBI must try to look into it this way as well.
Nitish
will be at fault only when he tries to protect Anant Singh. As of now, he has
taken prompt action and the very fact that Reshma wrote aletter to the CM suggests
that she did have confidence in the justice of the CM.
Will the CBI act expeditiously?
Will the CM remain stuck to justice and rule of law?
Anant Singh, nevertheless,
deserves, harshest possible action for his murderous assault on the media-men.my
appeal to people of Bihar is that Laloo must not get any electoral advantage of
it. Dr
M. Sajjad
Lecturer, Centre of Advanced Study in History,
AMU, Aligarh
mdsajjad1@rediffmail.com | 
