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NHRC issues notices to Bihar officials on Senari attack

Taking a strong view of the reported brutal assault on women and children in Senari village by police, the National Human Rights Commission has issued notices to top Bihar government officials and sent its own investigating team to the village for an inquiry.

NHRC sources said that in view of the urgency and significance of the matter, the commission's full bench considered the complaint filed by M K Singh and Usha Thakur and asked Bihar's chief secretary and director general of police to reply to the notices within two weeks.

The NHRC's director general (investigation) was also asked to send a team headed by a senior superintendent of police to make his own inquiry and file a report within a week.

"The DG is also requested to contact the local authorities concerned for such action as may be necessary to ensure identification and apprehension of the culprits and for action against them in accordance with law," the bench said.

On July 27, a contingent of the Central Reserve Police Force and Bihar Mounted Police led by Kurtha sub-divisional police officer Sanjay Ranjan Singh had raided Senari, which had not yet forgotten last year's massacre of 34 people, to arrest some of the accused in the recent killings in Miapur.

They allegedly ransacked houses, beat up women and threatened the villagers, suspecting them to be sympathisers of the banned Ranvir Sena.

Almost all the women were caned and a woman was thrown off the roof. The police reportedly did not spare even 90-year-old Ramjari Devi, who had lost her son Birendra Sharma on March 18 last year in an attack by the Maoist Communist Centre, and infants.

The villagers alleged that police looted property worth Rs 200,000. Some 40 persons were admitted to hospital later.

Earlier, the police had arrested a Ranvir Sena member who revealed during interrogation that the conspiracy to massacre 40 persons in Miapur village on June 16 was hatched at a house in Senari.

On the basis of this information the police raided Senari village and targeted the families whose members were killed in an MCC attack last year on the assumption that they must have been in contact with the Ranvir Sena.

The Patna high court had taken suo moto cognizance of the matter and ordered a judicial inquiry. It had directed the Jehanabad district and sessions judge on July 30 to constitute a team to probe the matter. The district and sessions judge constituted a seven-member judicial team to probe the alleged police excesses. The team, which included a woman, is to submit its report on Monday.

UNI

EARLIER REPORT:
Prodded by court, Bihar government files case against policemen

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