National

One killed in fresh firing

PATNA: The Bihar police opened fire on Saturday on demonstrators in Kahalgaon subdivision of Bhagalpur district killing one person.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ordered a judicial enquiry into the police firing and placed under suspension the SDO and DSP of Kahalgaon.

According to reports reaching here the police entered a locality, knocked at a door, dragged two people out, bashed them up and shot at them. One of them died on the spot. The other has been hospitalised with a bullet injury.

The dead has been identified as Md. Khairu while Md. Aslam is the one undergoing treatment. The family members charged that the DSP himself barged into their home when they were watching TV, pulled the two out, and shot at Khairu and Aslam.

Earlier enforcing a bandh, thousands came out of their homes on Saturday protesting against Friday’s police firing in which a student Sumit Mandal was killed. Bambam Jha succumbed to his injuries on Saturday.

The agitators, angry over the absence of a doctor in the hospital, torched it, four ambulances, and a police jeep. They also fought pitched battles with the police demanding institution of criminal cases against the guilty officials responsible for the police firing and their arrest, besides compensation for the bereaved families.

Police said they opened fire in self-defence after lathi-charge and teargas failed to disperse the bandh supporters protesting erratic power supply in the region for over a month now.

The State government sent Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah and ADG Abhyanand Singh to meet the agitators but the locals refused to meet them and the two returned to the state capital. The DSP, SDO, BDO and the Kahalgaon police station in-charge are to be transferred.

The power problem has snowballed into a major crisis with the people enforcing bandhs in several districts like Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Purnia and Bhagalpur.

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