Patna, June 30: A singlemember commission of inquiry, set up in accordance with the recommendation of Chief Justice of Patna High Court, will probe into the Forbesganj firing incident. Retired judge Madhavendra Saran has taken the charge as the chairman of the inquiry commission.

In the firing on June 3, at Forbesganj in Araria district, four people, including a 10-month-old boy and a pregnant woman, were killed.

Home secretary Amir Subhani, who is also the principle secretary of minority welfare department, said during a news meet at Soochna Bhavan today: “Retired judge Madhavendra Saran has taken the charge into the Forbesganj police firing incident. The probe has now started, as chief minister Nitish Kumar had said that investigation into the incident should start soon.”

He added: “The commission will submit its report within six months.” The commission will inquire into the background and the circumstances that led to the occurrence of the incident and it will also inquire into the sequence of events and the role of the people concerned. More importantly, the commission will probe the justification of the firing by the police at Forbesganj, Subhani said.

When asked why compensation to three other victims is not being given, Subhani said: “Until the judicial probe report comes, the state government cannot announce compensation to rest of the ‘victims’. The government wants that the entire picture should come clear.”

He said: “The government never said it does not want to compensate the other victims. As far as compensation to the 10-month-old child’s kin is concerned, it’s a different case all together. It was necessary to compensate the relative of the child but what kind of compensation the other victims will be getting can only be decided once the report comes. On the basis of the report, the government will look into the matter in a proper way and according to that, an appropriate decision will be taken.”

Subhani added that the state government had asked for a sitting judge to probe into the incident but because of non-availability of a judge, a retired judge was assigned the task.

After the incident, the Opposition, including the Congress, had slammed the Nitish Kumar government for not compensating the rest of the three victims killed in the firing and had launched a campaign seeking a CBI probe.