Patna: Big and heavy locks hang on the main doors of houses in the Dalit hamlet at Nandan village under Dumraon block in Buxar district, around 110km west of Patna, where stones and bricks were hurled at chief minister Nitish Kumar's convoy last Friday.
An eerie silence prevails in the hamlet. Most male residents have fled. Only old men, children and women have been left, as the police continued to search houses almost every day after the attack on the CM's motorcade.
"Everyone is scared of police action," local social activist Indrakant Tiwari said on Tuesday. "Most of the residents, especially the men, have taken shelter either in their relatives' houses outside the village or shifted somewhere else. They will return to the village once the situation becomes normal."
The residents are so frightened that they are refusing to talk to any outsider.
"For god's sake, leave us alone. We are passing through the worst ever crisis. Our houses were ransacked and utensils broken by security personnel during raids at night," said an elderly woman.
On Monday, the Dumraon police conducted raids and arrested Anil Kumar Ram, Dharmendra Kumar, Sunil Kumar, Phulkumari Devi, Rita Devi, Bifayee Devi, Sumitra Devi, Muneshwar Devi and Lalita Devi.
They were later produced in court, which remanded them to 4-judicial custody in the Buxar Central Jail.
The cops have arrested 37 persons so far in connection with the attack on Nitish's convoy. Dumraon police station house officer Subodh Kumar has been suspended.
Deputy inspector-general of police (DIG), Shahabad range, Kumar Eklay said that the disciplinary action had been initiated against the SHO on the superintendent of police's recommendation.
On Monday, Eklay inspected the site where Nitish's motorcade was pelted with stones and bricks during a visit to the village to assess the development works as part of his ongoing yatra.
The DIG neither met any resident nor talked to the representatives of the local panchayat.
A sniffer dog was also pressed into service to search for explosives at the village, about 3km from the Dumraon sub-divisional headquarters. However, no explosive material was found during an hour-long search, a source said, adding that raids were underway to arrest all the accused.
The FIR lodged with the Dumraon police station on the statement of sub-divisional officer (SDO) Pramod Kumar, who was deployed at the visit during the chief minister's door-to-door inspection of development works, names 99 persons and over 500 unknown persons are also accused.
The SDO, in the FIR, admitted that at least nine official vehicles, including a bullet-proof one, was damaged and six police personnel suffered injuries in the attack. The SDO didn't rule out a criminal conspiracy behind the attack.
