BHOPAL: Right after the judicial probe report on the 2016 Bhopal jailbreak and subsequent death of eight SIMI men in an alleged police encounter was tabled in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly on Monday, the Congress MLAs demanded that the report of a judicial panel, which probed the Mandsaur firing, also be tabled.
Led by Hardeep Singh Dang (Suwasra-Mandsaur) and Nishank Kumar Jain (Basoda-Vidisha), the Congress MLAs demanded the judicial probe panel report on the Mandsaur firing be tabled during the Zero Hour in the Assembly.
Earlier, minister of state for general administration department Lal Singh Arya tabled the probe panel report on the 2016 jailbreak and police encounter.
Carrying pamphlets bearing demand for tabling the Mandsaur firing deaths probe panel report and withdrawing cases against innocent farmers, the Congress MLAs questioned what was the problem in tabling the judicial probe panel when other reports were being tabled in the House.Suwasra MLA Hardeep Singh Dang, who kept standing with the pamphlets bearing the demand throughout a large part of the Zero Hour on the first day of the five-day Monsoon session, also alleged that the submission of the Mandsaur probe report was being delayed to save the culprits in the episode.
Five farmers were killed allegedly in police firing on irate mob of farmers at two spots in Pipliyamandi town of Mandsaur district on June 6, 2017 in the midst of farmers stir.A judicial probe panel headed by retired High Court judge JK Jain was constituted by the state government in June 2017 only to probe the episode.
The probe panel submitted the report recently to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government, but it remains to be seen whether the report is tabled in the Assembly in the present Monsoon session, which is possibly the last session of the Assembly before the year-end polls in the state.As per contents of the probe report on Mandsaur firing deaths leaked in sections of media recently, the probe panel has termed the police firing on irate mob (which killed five farmers and injured six others) for self-defence as inevitable and justified under the prevailing circumstances.
What portions of ‘leaked’ report mention
The report says the police attempts to control the mob by firing tear gas shells and lathi charge did not have impact
Evidence available before it reveals that in such a situation, police firing was extremely essential and justified, the panel says
The report, however, says the police didn’t follow the established norms of sticking to firing at the legs of protestors