(From left): RJD general secretary Ramkripal Yadav, party state chief Ram Chandra Purbey, Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui and LJP leader Ramchander Paswan show the photographs of victims of the Forbesganj firing at the RJD party office in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, June 7: The RJD and the LJP have charged the Nitish Kumar government with repeating the genocide of the 2002 Gujarat riots targeting the minority community.

Addressing a press conference after the Opposition leaders returned from Forbesganj under Araria district, senior RJD leader and leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui said: “The Forbesganj incident reminds me of the 2002 Gujarat riots which was state-sponsored riot targeting the minority community.”

Siddiqui said the NDA government, with its hidden agenda, aims at pleasing BJP and is targeting the minority community living in Seemanchal districts of Bihar.

The Forbesganj incident in which four persons were killed aims to target the minority community as no arrest has been made till now.

A delegation of Opposition leaders led by LJP state president Ramvilas Paswan, RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, RJD general secretary Ramkripal Yadav had visited the spot and the delegation has also planned to spot the report to Governor and National Human Rights Commission seeking judicial probe in the incident.

Siddiqui also claimed that there is a larger conspiracy behind the incident in connivance with the BJP and local businessman Ashok Agarwal.

The incident took place in the Muslim-dominated Bhajanpur village under Forbesganj Assembly consistency in Araria district.

The villagers were protesting against the blockage of a path by Auru Sundaram International Private Limited Company, which is setting up a factory of starch and glucose. For years, villagers have used the road that connects the village with the block headquarters until the factory owners blocked it without providing any alternate path.

The RJD leader said the plot belongs to BJP leader Ashok Agarwal who is also close to deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi. LJP leader Ramchander Paswan, who was also part of the delegation, said prior to the incident, the deputy chief minister had visited Araria district on May 29 and had ordered the district administration to block the path used by the villagers as pathway. The leaders claimed that the victims included a pregnant woman and a 10-month-old child.

Siddiqui also said the delegation was shocked on visiting the spot of incident and knowing the course of events from residents of nearby villages.

The leaders said a person, who had sustained serious injuries in the police firing, lay on the ground while a police personnel jumped on his body, which exposes the NDA agenda of bad governance.

Siddiqui said: “The police personnel was jumping on the body of the injured person but neither any senior police personnel nor his fellow police personnel managed to stop him.”

Blaming the NDA leadership, the leaders stated that till now, neither any minister nor any MLA or MP could make time to visit the spot that exposes that the NDA leadership knew about the anger of the villagers.