RANCHI: Jharkhand Government, in the light of statewide bandh called by united opposition parties on July 5 against the changes in land bill, has warned protesters to restrain themselves from any kind of violence or strict action will be taken against them.
Meanwhile, District Administration in Ranchi, taking precautionary measures, has launched a special drive to get the hostels run by welfare department for the tribal students vacated from unauthorized possession.
Deputy Commissioner Rai Mahimapat Ray has directed the District Welfare Officer to visit all the hostels run by the department and get them vacated from the unauthorized possession from the pass out students. They have been asked to vacate the hostel by 4 pm on July 4 or action will be taken against them.
Notably, large-scale violence was witnessed across the State during a daylong 'Bharat Bandh' called by the Tribal and Dalit organizations on April 2 against the recent Supreme Court ruling to alter the provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 during which more than a dozen police personnel, including City SP and Kotwali DSP were injured in a scuffle between hostel students and police force following which the Police had to resort to lathi charge, tear gas and water cannons after the mob went out of control.
Jharkhand Police citing a directive of Jharkhand High Court in 2016 has warned that no one should forcefully implement bandh or force anyone to participate in it and the damages caused on any public or private property will be recovered from the parties calling the bandh.
"District administrations have been directed through video conferencing to allow those who want to register their protest peacefully in a democratic way during the bandh, but if they resort to any kind of violence or try to impose bandh forcefully on the people, strict action will be taken against them," said ADG (Operations) and Jharkhand Police Spokesperson RK Mallick.
To avert any untoward incident during the bandh, adequate deployment of security forces will be done on the sensitive locations identified by the district administration on the basis of earlier experiences, he added.
"Looking at the earlier experiences, precautionary measures will be taken by deploying adequate forces at the hostels run by welfare department," said the Police spokesperson. It is expected that the protesters will restrain any kind of violence to impose bandh on the common people, he added.
JMM, however, said that they were also opposed to any kind of violate, and claimed that the bandh was called by the people and not by them.
"The bandh has been called by the people and only they will make it successful," said JMM Spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya. State BJP on the other hand, citing an order issued by Jharkhand High Court dated December 3, 2003 in Sailesh Kumar v/s State of Jharkhand and others, has termed the bandh called by the Opposition parties under the leadership of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha as unconstitutional and illegal as the court order has restrained the party from indulging in such unconstitutional and destructive acts.
BJP Spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo said that the direction was given by the Jharkhand Court while hearing a PIL in the light of large scale violence which took place during the bandh called by JMM on August 21, 2003. EoM