Forbesganj stir has officials baffled

FORBESGANJ (ARARIA): Even as TV news channels flashed footage of police excesses during violence outside an upcoming factory in Forbesaganj on Indo-Nepal border on Friday in which four people were killed, state home secretary Amir Subhani on Saturday said the government would take a decision on compensation to the victims only after the completion of an ongoing inquiry into the incident.
Subhani along with ADG of police (HQ) Rajyawardhan Sharma was here on the directive of chief minister Nitish Kumar to probe the circumstances that led to the bloody incident. While Subhani clarified that police fired only ten rounds, Sharma said only a thorough probe would reveal whether the police firing was provoked or could have been avoided.
The incident took place at the site of a Rs 130-crore project of maize starch, liquid glucose and captive power plant on the land of Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA). The villagers of Bhajanpur would earlier use the land as an approach path to their homes. In protest, a mob of villagers assembled at the site, torched several machines and tractors and also demolished the boundary wall of the plant.
As police intervened, three people died in the cross-firing between the mob and the police. A child succumbed to his injuries on Saturday. Official sources said 27 policemen and a magistrate were also hurt.
The home secretary and ADG, who interacted with villagers and police and civil officials, wondered why the villagers assembled at the spot when an agreement had been reached between the villagers and the BIADA on June 1 on an alternative route for public use, barely 100 metres away.
They said people should desist from taking law into their hands for redressal of their grievances. “Law and order would be maintained at all costs. The guilty would not be spared in the larger interest of a conducive industrial climate in the state,” Subhani said.
Meanwhile, plant proprietors Auro Sundaram International Pvt Ltd’s director Ashok Chowdhury said the firm took 35 acres of land on lease from BIADA in 2009. Ever since the work started on the project in December last, Bhajanpur villagers were agitating for a road passage through the unit site. “After several rounds of talks, an agreement on an alternate route was reached recently,” he told TOI and wondered what prompted the villagers to change their mind and resort to violence on Friday. Saurabh Agrawal, another director of the firm and son of BJP MLC Ashok Agrawal, was also present.