Prafulla Kumar Mahanta addresses a news conference at his residence in Guwahati on Wednesday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, June 29: Former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today asked the state government why it had violated the instructions of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on use of non-lethal weapons in a democratic protest while trying to disperse the protesters led by Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) in Dispur on June 22.

Three people were killed and over 40 injured when police opened fire on those protesting against eviction in the hills and demanding land patta for the hill dwellers.

Mahanta told reporters that at a conference of police chiefs in New Delhi on August 26 last year, Singh had asked the security forces to find “non-lethal but effective” means of controlling mobs. The conference was organised following the killing of 65 people, mostly protesters, in police firing in Jammu and Kashmir in June and August last year.

“We need to revisit the standard operation procedures and crowd control measures to deal with public agitation with non-lethal and more focused measures,” Singh had said at the conference. He had said he would request Union home minister P. Chidambaram to establish a high power task force to make recommendations on the issue within two to three months of the conference.

Mahanta said despite such a clear-cut instruction from the Prime Minister, the state government did not hesitate to use bullets during the agitation on June 22, killing three protesters, including a nine-year-old boy.

“I ask the state government whether they have received any guidelines from the Union home minister after two or three months of the Prime Minister’s address? If yes, what were the recommendations and have they been implemented? If no, then we can say that the police firing on the protesters was itself a violation of Singh’s instructions to the security forces,” Mahanta said.

Mahanta said the police could have used water cannon to disperse the mob. Instead, following a “British era method” they used bullets and tear gas, he alleged.

Mahanta said just after coming to power for the third term, the Congress government had launched an eviction drive in the city’s hills. But, in the 10 years that Gogoi has been the chief minister, he never bothered to carry out any eviction drive in Kaziranga National Park although vast areas of the park has been encroached upon by suspected foreigners, he alleged.

“If the state government has the courage, it should evict the encroachers in Kaziranga National Park and the border areas of the state. Hundreds of bighas of land of the state have been encroached upon near the border,” he said.