Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar with his ministers at the news meet in Patna on Monday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, June 20: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today refused to play ball with his rivals on the Lokpal bill and police firing at Forbesganj, the two burning issues engaging the politics of the state as well as the Centre.

Replying to a query over the Opposition’s relentless agitation over the police firing which left four people dead at Bhajanpura village on June 3, the chief minister said: “I have ordered a judicial commission to probe the incident and as such it is not appropriate for me to respond to what the leaders of other parties are saying.

“My remarks might influence the judicial inquiry. The Opposition parties are free to speak whatever they wish. On my part, I am re-iterating my request to the chief justice of the Patna High Court to spare the service of a judge to probe the matter and submit a report as soon as possible.”

On the Lok Pal bill issue, too, he refused to give his opinion.

“According to the stipulated procedure, it is the duty of the central government to move its proposal on such an issue (Lokpal) and get it passed by Parliament. The way the Centre is seeking opinion without disclosing its own proposal is not right. And again it is not appropriate for me to deliberate on the issue without knowing the Centre’s proposal.”

All Bihar Opposition parties, including the RJD, LJP and the Congress, have virtually turned Patna into an agitation ground, crying hoarse over the killing of four people belonging to the minority community in police firing at Bhajanpura and demanding a CBI probe into the incident.

Some social groups, NGOs and artistes too joined the chorus, with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt taking the kin of deceased to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday.

The RJD went to the extent of accusing Nitish of “doing to the Muslims in a phased manner what Narendra Modi (Gujarat chief minister) did in bulk in Gujarat).

The chief minister, however, refused to join issue with the Opposition, saying: “The government has decided to hand over the inquiry to a judicial commission. The inquiry report will apprise us with what happened and how it happened. Let us wait for the report. On my part, I can only say that the government will act steadfastly on the report and ensure justice to all.”

Nitish said the government had taken the incidents of policemen beating up an unconscious man and the death of a 10-month-old boy in the Forbesganj firing very seriously and has also initiated action against the two police personnel on prima facie accounts.

“But all of us should first wait for the judicial panel report,” he insisted.

Speaking on the death of 19 children due to some mysterious disease in north Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, the chief minister said blood samples of the affected patients have been collected by experts from Rajendra Medical Research Institute, Muzaffarpur, and sent to the appropriate labs in Pune and New Delhi. “I had a meeting with the chief secretary and principal secretary of the health department to find out a solution to the disease which grip children in the specific region during May and June almost every year,” he said.

Without mentioning the name of Swami Nigmanand, a sadhu from Bihar who died after four-month-long fast to protest against illegal quarrying on the Ganga riverbed, Nitish said, “The pollution in the Ganga has created many troubles. Its water is neither worth drinking nor bathing.”

The state government, he said, had given its proposal for cleaning the Ganga to an authority constituted under the stewardship of prime minister Manmohan Singh.

“The Centre must give financial assistance and also the right to the concerned states to clean the river as it was beyond the means and resources of the state governments to make the river pollution-free on their own.”