Date:10/02/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/02/10/stories/2003021004821100.htm

National

Bihar police file FIR against Thakur supporters

By K. Balchand

PATNA FEB. 9. Even as the ruling RJD launched a counter-offensive against the NDA over the law and order situation in Bihar, the police today filed an FIR against the supporters of the Union Small Scale Industries Minister, C.P. Thakur, for carrying weapons in the prohibited zone of the Patna airport on Friday last.

The RJD leaders, including Ministers, staged a dharna in a bid to take the current political battle to the Opposition camp, which has made the recent crime incidents a political issue. The RJD chief, Laloo Prasad Yadav, alleged that these incidents had been staged at the instigation of the Opposition leaders to tarnish the image of the Rabri Devi Government. Other leaders said that Dr. Thakur's supporters had openly flaunted their firepower to create terror. The RJD sent related pictures to the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, and demanded Dr. Thakur's dismissal.

The RJD also questioned the credentials of the LJP chief, Ram Vilas Paswan, charging that one of the MLAs belonging to his party was involved in the kidnapping racket.

The Gardanibagh police station has lodged a case against supporters of Dr. Thakur for carrying illegal arms into the hangar of the Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash Narayan International Airport, Patna — a prohibited zone — and firing about 20 rounds in the air as he climbed down from the plane on his arrival here for the first time after his return to the Union Cabinet.

The RJD State general secretary, Ram Kripal Yadav, charged that the gun-totting men were all members of the banned Ranvir Sena, and that the party would lodge a fresh complaint with the Amir Das Commission probing the Sena's political links. He pointed out that the Commission had already been probing Dr. Thakur's links with the Sena.

The Union Minister's supporters, however, claimed that the charges were politically motivated and that the guns were licensed and that those carrying them had been permitted to enter the hangar. Even as the RJD has sought to retaliate, an enquiry report by the Rural Superintendent of Police, Patna, Amit Kumar, stated that the encounter in which the army jawan, Amitesh Sharma alias Madhukar Sharma, was killed had been a fake one and ordered the arrest of the Paliganj officer-in-charge, Vivekanand Singh, and the constable, Sandeep Kumar. The Government has already suspended two officials and three constables in this connection.