RAIPUR: The police are known to give a tough time to people visiting the thana to lodge an FIR but in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur where the security personnel resorted to lathi-charge on Congressmen, the police hardly took 15 minutes to quickly register three FIRs against 25 Congress workers, barely an hour after the commotion.
The Congress however rejected the state government decision on magisterial inquiry and demanded a judicial probe by sitting or former judge.
"The party workers will show black flag to the PM during his scheduled visit to Chhattisgarh on September 22 until our demands on lodging an FIR against the blameworthy officials and a judicial inquiry are met," said Chhattisgarh Congress party in-charge P L Punia. Several Congress cadres had sustained injuries.
The three FIRs were lodged by the police personnel at civil lines police station against the Congress workers on obstructing to execute public duty, scuffle with the women constables, altercation with the police at the minister's home. Before registering the FIRs, "none of the police men who are complainants were medically examined", a senior journalist based in Bilaspur told the Express.
The opposition held their demonstrations to strongly protest against the "police attack" in different parts of the state citing the incident as "barbaric". The video of the police act went viral on social media. The state government decided to attach the services of Bilaspur additional SP Neeraj Chandrakar to the state police headquarter on Thursday.
The chief minister Raman Singh who disapproved the act of throwing garbage into the cabinet minister Amar Agrawal's home nevertheless condemned the "police lathi-charge" on Congressmen and instituted a magisterial probe. The investigation into the incident by the additional collector will be completed within three months.
The Congress workers allegedly dumped garbage at the residence of the minister after his reported remark calling the Congress as "kachhra" (garbage) in Bilaspur. Chandrakar who was in the eye of storm for leading the forces to lathi-charge defended that the Congress workers not just threw debris inside the Minister's residence but entered into scuffle with the police including woman constable following which FIR have been registered.
"The brutal lathi-charge without any provocation has shocked everyone. Why didn't the police arrest Congressmen when they were at the minister's resident? The police force instead rushed to the Congress Bhawan and attacked the party workers and leaders. Such police brutality as political assault has never happened before", thundered the Congress chief spokesperson Ramesh Warlyani.
"I will also carry out the departmental inquiry into it", the Bilaspur SP Arif Sheikh said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi dubbed the Bilaspur incident as an act of "political assault" and said that the 'dictatorship has become a profession in PM Narendra Modi regime'.