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Laloo blames Bajrang Dal for Jehanabad massacre

Rashtriya Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav today sought to blame the Bajrang Dal for the January 25 killing of 23 dalits in Jehanabad, saying the Ranvir Sena, the outfit of landlords that perpetrated the massacre, "is nothing but an extension of the Bajrang Dal".

"First they [the Bharatiya Janata Party] mastermind such cruel incidents, then raise the bogey of removal of the RJD government by holding us responsible for collapse of law and order in the state," the former chief minister of Bihar said in response to the BJP's demand to sack the Rabri Devi government.

"Chief Minister Rabri Devi will not quit," he said, adding that her government had made elaborate police bandobast by creating new police districts and 15 police stations in the affected areas.

On Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari's meeting with Home Minister L K Advani in New Delhi on Friday morning in connection with the state's law-and-order situation, he said, "A systematic campaign to tarnish the state government's image is underway to topple it."

Yadav, who was in New Delhi on his way to Bhopal to participate in the Samajwadi Party's national executive meeting, said dalits and Christians are being killed to whip up caste and communal tensions and consolidate a vote bank for the BJP.

Yadav shared President K R Narayanan's concern on the caste bloodshed and said none would be spared. Police have already arrested the main culprits, he said.

He said the villagers were not involved in any land dispute, yet even women and children were butchered in cold blood.

The RJD politician accused the Congress of having created land disputes in the area during its rule, which has led to recurring incidents of violence. But he claimed that since his party rode to power in 1990, the killings have been checked to a great extent.

UNI

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