Bhubaneswar, Sept. 19: A Congress delegation from Odisha has urged the National Human Rights Commission to probe into the alleged police excesses during a party demonstration in front of the Assembly on September 6.
Odisha Congress president Niranjan Patnaik, who met the commission’s chairman, former Justice K.G. Balakrishnan in New Delhi, said: “We demanded an impartial probe into the police assault on our party workers who were peacefully demonstrating in front of the state Assembly against the corrupt deeds and failures of the Naveen Patnaik government.”
Several Congress workers were injured during the “Naveen hatao, Odisha banchao” rally on September 6 in front of the state assembly.
Last week, a delegation had also met governor M.C. Bhandare and urged him to order a probe by the Lokpal into the alleged police excesses. The party had also observed a statewide strike on September 10 in protest against the alleged attack on the “peaceful” demonstration over Coalgate and other scams.
Mahila Congress activists also lodged 16 complaints at the Mahila police station and Capital police station against the city’s deputy commissioner of police Nitinjeet Singh and other police officials, alleging that they had assaulted several women agitators. Congress was, however, caught on the wrong foot as a woman constable, Pramila Padhi, was severely injured following assault allegedly by party workers.
Police registered cases against 34 party workers on the charge of assaulting police officials including Padhi and released photographs of the accused.
The BJD accused Congress leader in charge of Odisha affairs Jagdish Tytler and Niranajn Patnaik of instigating the party workers to break the police cordon and indulge in violence. The BJD also staged a protest in Bhubaneswar to turn public opinion against the Congress.
Police officials had demanded the arrest of Tytler for inciting violence against their colleagues and threatened not to provide security to him during his visits to the state.
However, Tytler had denied the charges of inciting violence and dared the government to arrest him.
