Patna city SP Kim

Patna, Feb. 22: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today tendered an unprecedented apology on the floor of the Legislative Council on behalf of city superintendent of police Kim who had thrashed a woman during a scuffle with the force on Monday.

The gesture of regret was aimed at dousing the groundswell of anger against the police, which has been accused of not doing enough to control crime in the capital.

“She has made a mistake but she is a young officer and might be needing some counselling. It is her first posting too. I take moral responsibility for what she (the SP) has done and apologise. She should be forgiven for her solitary mistake,” Nitish said in the Upper House — of which he is a member — while announcing a “high-level probe” into the incident of electrocution that killed two teenagers on Monday evening and touched off a wave of events leading up to the catfight between Kim and Sujata Devi, a mother of three.

The woman was pleading for the release of her three sons, aged between 13 and 22 years, who had been picked up by the police for alleged stone-pelting.

Sujata had slapped back Kim after the lady IPS officer had beaten her for demanding her sons’ release.

The state home department has directed Patna divisional commissioner K.P Ramaiah to investigate the electrocution incident and submit a report. Ramaiah said he would visit the site of the incident tomorrow and talk to the local people to ascertain what exactly had happened.

Late on Monday evening, two teenaged boys were killed after being electrocuted while they were crossing a patch of road at the Tiwary Bechar area of Kankerbagh which had been dug up for construction.

The deaths sparked off a scuffle between the police and residents protesting against the administration’s negligence for not covering up naked wires. A group of policemen, trying to disperse the stone-pelting mob, had entered Sujata’s house located along the same stretch of road and beat up her three sons for alleged involvement in the violence.

Sujata, whose businessman-husband R. Dipti was out of Patna at the time, had tried to stop the police from arresting her children when Kim, a 2008 batch IPS officer, arrived. Sujata has alleged that Kim repeatedly slapped her when she pleaded with her to release her sons who, she said, didn’t have any hand in the violence.

Sujata, 45, also lost her cool and retaliated by hitting the officer.

The Dipti family had said yesterday they would lodge a court case against Kim.

Nitish’s apology hasn’t pacified Sujata. “Why should he apologise to us? And why should he forgive the officer stating that it was her mistake? This means that any criminal committing an offence should be pardoned by the administration? It was the city SP who hit me and dragged my sons, beating them up badly for more than 20 minutes, after which I retaliated. We want a personal apology from her. We still stand by our statement of going to the CJM’s court. But we will wait for a while to see if the investigation by the administration is proceeding in the right direction,” Sujata told The Telegraph this evening.

No police officer was willing to speak on the matter. Neither Kim nor DGP Abhayanand, who is in Delhi, could be reached for comment.

The apology by the chief minister has, however, stumped the Opposition which was gearing up to make capital of the issue during the ongoing budget session.

RJD MP and secretary-general of the party Ram Kripal Yadav attacked Nitish for apologising on behalf of the city SP. “He (Nitish) should make a new law in which all young people committing crimes like rape, dacoity and murder for the first time shall be forgiven,” Ram Kripal said.