PUCL report on Police excess in Langartoli, Nala Road, Kadam Kuan, Patna
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A news item appeared in the local dailies about Police excesses on a group of protesters in Langertoli, Nala Road, Patna. The incident took place on August 12, 2011. Bihar PUCL discussed it in its weekly meeting on August 14, 2011 and decided to probe the incident as it involves citizens’ legitimate right to protest. An enquiry team was constituent with Fr. Philip Manthara, President Bihar PUCL, Jitendra Choubey, member, Kanchan Bala, member and Manish Kumar, member.
The team visited the ground zero on 22 August, 2011. The team met residents, shopkeepers, protesters, hawkers and onlookers along with victims to find out their version of the incident. Among them were Geeta Devi, 45 yrs, Mobile Shop Owner, Shamim, 55 yrs, (Spectacles Shop), Prem Kumar, 26 yrs, (Sweet Shop), Prakash, 27 yrs, (Optical shop), Uttam, 32 yrs, (Optical Shop), Ram Ji, 55 yrs, (Vegetable Seller), Prem (Sahara Finance Agent), Malti Devi,( Tea Shop). The residents who either participated in this cause or as residents were Jayram Singh, 50 yrs, resident; Vijay kumar, 35 yrs, resident; Shailu Devi, 40 yrs, resident; Laxmi Devi, 42 yrs, w/o Mahaveer Kumar; Bijwanti Devi w/o Girjananda Singh; Rupa, 25 yrs; Sanjay kr Munna, 35 yrs, Businessman; Chinta Devi, 65 yrs, and her manager Gajo Prasad, 70 yrs, resident.
They narrated how their only narrow lane they have was flooded with rain. The drain was chocked resulting in knee deep water on road. Unfortunately, sewer line got clogged and started over flowing. This resulted in a lot of filthy matter floating from sceptic tanks. Besides this the accumulated garbage turned putrid making it terrible for the residents. The situation remained like this for 10 days. The worst sufferers were school going children, the Aged and the sick. An old lady said that she was confined for a week without vegetables. Shopkeepers lost their business and vendors their precious livelihood.
The foul smell emanating from putrid matter made life hellish for them. Discontentment grew because of the terrible apathy of the administration. As taxpayers, it was their right to get basic civic amenities. Even at this stage they did not allow despair to take over. They wrote petitions signed by more than 100 people and submitted them to their respective ward councilors. After getting no positive response from the administration the residents decided to register a non-violent protest on 12 august, 2011 to draw the attention of the administration about their terrible plight.
A fairly large number of people were gathered in the morning around 8:30 am on Aug 12, 2011. The protesters barricaded one half of the two way road and allowed the other half for vehicular movement. They burnt tyres to draw the city’s administration to their daily sufferings. At 9 am, the women started addressing the crowd on microphone. A police Jeep from Kadam Kuan Police Station led by ASI Lal Babu singh arrived. But they didn’t interfere with the peaceful protest. According to the witnesses a crowd of 200-300 had gathered there by then.
Around 10 am, the Dy SP (Town), Rama Kant Prasad arrived with his two body guards. He was neither interested to know the reason of protest nor in its peaceful end. He preferred to use force. He himself snatched away the microphone from speaker, Anamika, 31 yrs, and without any prior warning, ordered his men to disperse the crowd by force. What followed then was brutal lathi blows. According to them, Ramakant Prasad forcibly took Sadhana Mishra, 41 yrs into a tight grip within his arms. Rest of the public including other girls and women were infuriated over this unacceptable behavior and they tried to release Sadhana from his clutches. During this scuffle, Ramakant Prasad’s uniform was partially torn. He threw Sadhana on the road with full force causing her bodily injury. Police brazenly used cane against women; a youth named Nikolai Sharma, while trying to defend the women, bore the brunt of the attack on his bare palm, that required eight stitches to stop bleeding. A girl, Suman Lata Mourya, said Ramakant Prasad threw a burning tyre over her which she allowed to slip down her body by closing her limbs tightly. She narrowly escaped with only burn injury on her left arm.
The angry crowd threw few stones resulting in some damage to the wind screen of the Police Jeep. Policemen turned more violent than earlier and used their cane more indiscriminately against the crowd. After dispersing a large part of the crowd, Police started arresting protesters. They took Sadhana Mishra,41, Sandhya Maiti, 50, Anamika, 31, Leelavati Singh, 42, Laxami Devi, 45, Sumanlata Mourya alias Pinky,21, Anjali, 18, Pooja Singh,23, Pummy Kumari alias Sadhana,21 and five men Suryakar Jitendra, 38 yrs, Anil Kr, 35 yrs, Saroj kr Suman, 30 yrs, Krishnamohan Singh, 22 yrs, Rahul Singh, 20 yrs under custody. The people mentioned above were beaten up in public view. The women were roughed up, humiliated by using filthiest abuses in the Police vocabulary to demoralise them exposing the brutal face of Patna Police. The people were furious. It was only when the whole thing was over they brought two women police in civil dress just to show that lady police were present.
In the Kadamkuan Police Station: Victim’s version
At the Police Station, the arrested people were asked to sit on the floor. The police hurled filthy abuses on them while the men were beaten up again and again. When Dy SP Ramakant arrived he made hell for the victims. He told Policemen to beat them up as there were no media reporters inside. Ramakant Prasad smashed the spectacles of Sadhana Mishra. He slapped her on her checks again and again while calling the women and girls prostitute and worse. Meanwhile, Ramakant’s body guard didn’t want to be left behind. He took one young woman and started misbehaving with her. Her cries brought all the others to shriek and cry. Only then the bodyguard left her free. In the meantime arrested men received lathi blows and kicks.
Injury report (Medical report)
Victim, Suman Lata Mourya alias Pinky, suffered burning injury at her left arm and burn hair.
Nikolai Sharma wore a thick bandage covering his right palm. He had received eight stitches as his medical report suggest.
Sadhana Mishra had received arm and leg injury along with some internal injury according to her medical report.
All the arrested five men were sent to Jail after registering an FIR against them; the three women whose names were included in the FIR were let off.
According to FIR
FIR: no. 3784/11 filed by ASI Kadam Kuan P.S Lalbabu Singh
IPC section 147,148,149,341,323,353,307,332,427
Name of Accused:
Rahul Singh, S/O Girjanandan Singh, Langartoli
Suryakar Jitendra, S/O Late Saryug Sharma, Nala Road, Near Shiv mandir, SUCI worker
Mohan Singh, S/O Girijanandan Singh, Langartoli
Anil Kumar s/o Laxmi Narayan Barnwal, Rajendra Nagar Rd No.-1, Kadamkuan
Saroj Kumar Suman s/o Balkrishna Sharan, Darbhanga
Sadhana Mishra D/o Sitambar Mishra, Langartoli
Sandhya Maiti, D/o Late Bisheshwar Maiti, Langartoli
Pooja Singh D/o RAmdani Singh, Mirjapur Mali, Aurangabad
40-45 unknown active workers of SUCI
According to FIR, ASI Lalbabu singh, along with driver Ramashish Singh, Home guard Jawan Shivnath singh, and Lallan Sharma with mobile no. 1, reached the protest spot after getting information of huge traffic jam at Nala Road. He found 10-15 women and nearly 50 men had blocked the road, by burning the tyres. When he requested them to call off the protest and allow the movement of traffic, they all rejected his request and became defiant and started shouted slogans against the administration. Meanwhile, Dy SP (Town) Ramaknt Prasad arrived. He also requested them to call off the agitation. Instead of calling off, they started pelting stones and later on attacked the police using sticks and canes, leaving few policemen injured. One of the protesters was whirling the burning tyre which caused injury to protesters themselves. When anti-riot control vehicle arrived, a stampede occurred and some agitators received injuries. We chased and caught five men who later revealed the names of three women who were involved in this protest.
SHO Jyoti Prakash’s version
The protesters had not given prior notice of their agitation. Our ASI Lal Babu Singh was there to keep vigil over the peaceful Protest of around 50-60 people. As the Dy SP Rama Kant Prasad arrived, he ordered the Policemen to disperse the crowd. Our forces acted on his order. The mob turned violent and pelted stones. In the meanwhile, Dy SP asked for reinforcement from the Kadamkuan Police Station. Special Mobile-2 also arrived to control the mob. In this skirmish, ASI LalBabu Singh received minor head injury; constable, Suresh Thakur, who arrived with reinforcement, received Left hand injury and minor head injury. When the arrested were brought to the Police Station, no Media was present there.
Dy SP Ramakant Prasad’s version:
The team met Dy SP in his office at old Police lines near Gandhi Maidan on 23 August, 2011, morning. He was vocal in praising himself: his college days, his union activities and the many achievements of his life. He said when he was passing through Nala Road and found slogan mongering students. He intervened. Then he was compelled to take action. ‘I wish I had no uniform on me to teach them a lesson of their lives’ he said. On being asked about his alleged misbehavior with women and girls, he denied everything and put the all blames on the protesters. He said that there is a case against him in the court regarding this incident. He asked us to wait for the court verdict. He said he had acted in full media glare and promised to provide a CD to the team to prove his innocence. But that CD is not still made available even after repeated reminders.
Conclusion:
1. Any one visiting Langartoli even in normal days can imagine what the situation would have been when flooded with filth and putrid matter for days together. So the cause of protest was totally legitimate. The protest was peaceful as testified by the SHO, Kadamkuan PS.
2. The order of Dy SP to remove the protesters by force was not only against concept of modern policing but also against basic civil rights.
3. Eventually the police had the whole place thoroughly cleaned up by 6 pm the same day with the help of concerned ward councilors. If the Policemen had shared this possibility with the protesters in the morning, they would have found them their allies in restoring their legitimate right for civic amenities. The Patna police had missed a golden opportunity to gain community support in sorting out problems without violence.
4. The team sensed the anger of the people in the way Dy SP led the police in manhandling women protesters, beating them with lathis, slapping them and mouthing foul language against them as a method of punishment. This indicates the barbaric mindset of male chauvinistic police. The team unequivocally condemns this.
The Patna police often behave as the enemy of the people. Contrast the behavior of Patna police with that of the London police 117 of whom were wounded because of stone pelting during the recent riots there. They maintained restraint in the face of extreme provocation. Later the law-breakers were arrested and prosecuted. That is the route police should take in any civilized society.
5. The arrest and detention of 9 women by male police, without the presence of lady police, took place in full public view. The police also admitted this but this was not mentioned in the FIR. This had happened not by chance but by a clever design.
Recommendations:
1. The team found the conduct of the Dy SP led Police action as anti-people. We recommend his removal from the present assignment and start disciplinary procedure for blatant violation of human rights.
2. The team found the case made against the arrested persons manufactured. We recommend unconditional release of the arrested five men.
4. The arrest and detention of women protesters at Langertoli by Police men was totally illegal. The team recommends initiation of criminal procedure against the Dy SP, ASI Kadamkuan, Lal Babu Singh and other guilty policemen.
5. A radical police reform is a must in keeping with the increasing, legitimate aspiration of the citizen of this country in accordance with the provisions of the Indian constitution.
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Signature
1. Fr Philip Manthara 2. Jitendra Choubey
3. Kanchan Bala 4. Manish Kumar
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