Kanchan Devi (43) is one of many injured when the police and public fought a pitched battle at Khoruni on May 22, during the eighth round of polling for panchayat polls.
The police didn't spare even 80-year-old men, women or children. Over a dozen residents still shudder from the wounds the police inflicted. But Kanchan has worries bigger than her wounds. The homemaker from Khoruni, a non-descript village in Bhagalpur district, worries more for her 13-year-old son Manish Kumar, who is lodged at Sahid Jubba Sahani central jail.
She shared her ordeal with the BJP's Legislative Council member, N.K. Yadav, who visited Khoruni on Thursday. "Residents boycotted polling because polling officers concerned in booth number 132, the middle school at Purani tola in Sonuchak, had tampered with the ballot papers," she told Yadav, breaking down at the end of her ordeal. "Around 4pm, the Bhagalpur sub-divisional officer (SDO) reached the village accompanied by forces and started abusing the residents. Someone asked my son to provide drinking water to the force. As soon as he finished doing so, the forces nabbed him and started beating him mercilessly. I rushed to save him, but was abused and beaten up by the forces. They dragged Manish, a Class 8 student at the Government Middle School in Mohammadpur, to central jail." Manish's father Binod Sha said his son, a heart patient, was injured in the police action but is yet to get treatment in jail. He said he hoped the court would grant his son bail after the poll process ends.
Yadav condemned the police action and demanded immediate justice for those who were affected. He is scheduled to hand over reports and footage of the incident to former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on May 27. He also urged Bhagalpur divisional commissioner and district magistrate to take appropriate action against the officers involved in the incident and to provide immediate treatment facilities to the injured who are not stepping out fearing police action. "We will make it an issue to expose Nitish Kumar's tall claims. We will launch state-level movements after discussing with the leaders concerned," Yadav said.
The problem began when Anwar Ali, headmaster of the middle school began manipulating ballot papers to help Bibi Hushanara, a candidate for the post of sarpanch, said a resident. Polling was stopped from 9am to 4pm when the voters protested. "But around 4pm, Bhagalpur sub-divisional officer Kumar Anju came to the booth and started abusing the villagers," a resident said on condition of anonymity. "When the residents protested, the police gave them chase, entered their houses and beat them up mercilessly."
But SDO Kumar Anju alleged that the residents were attacked after they manhandled Bhagalpur deputy development commissioner (DDC) Amit Kumar when he went to convince voters not to boycott polling. The residents also indulged in brickbatting, in which 25 police personnel sustained injuries. "The situation was spinning out of control," Anju said.
Sudhansu Kumar, sector magistrate on duty, has registered an FIR with the Jagdishpur police station naming 22 people, including three women, as accused. All of them have been sent to jail.
Kundan Kesri, a 17-year-old, was among those sent to jail. "The police stripped Hiru Devi (32), a Khoruni resident and government middle school teacher in Banka, before beating her up mercilessly," said Barunkala Devi who also sustained injuries.
"Is this Nitish's definition of sushashan (good governance), where the police openly misbehave with women and target the elderly and children," asked a young man in the village. He and a few others were busy drafting a letter to the National Commission for Women, New Delhi, on behalf of women folk in the village.
Residents of Khoruni, an otherwise sleepy village on the banks of a tributary of river Chanan, some 14km south of Bhagalpur district headquarters, are still in shock.
Dozens of residents, among them 80-year-old Beteshwar Sha, were at the receiving end of police brutality. A day after, the police beat up Phool Devi, a 70-year-old blind woman, after breaking into her house. "My mother is blind and cannot even walk ever since she fractured her back some time back," Beteshwar's son Ajay Sha said. "She was lying on her cot when the police forcefully entered the house and beat her up like she were a criminal."
"Police also beat us up with canes. See the marks here," said Juli Bharati a student of Class 6. Her classmate Monika Kumari too had torture marks to show.
Terror was writ large on every face in the village. "Many male members of families have left the village and the police is creating pressure on us," said Basanti Devi, a homemaker. But after the visit by LJP leaders like Amar Singh Kushwaha, the police have stopped coming to the village during late hours." She said such is the fear in the village that residents don't dare come out for even treatment.
District magistrate Adesh Titarmare said he had not received any complain from any one. "If someone complains, I will take action," he said. But when told that people still sport wounds, he said he himself had initiated moves to provide treatment to injured Khoruni residents on May 22.
