The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked its Director General of Investigation to file a report on the deaths in police firing in Assam.
Supreme Court advocate and human rights activist Radhakanta Tripathy moved a petition before the apex human rights panel in this regard stating that at least three villagers were killed and 11 others injured when police personnel opened fire to control a mob in Assam’s Sonitpur district. The petitioner stated that the people in the affected areas are living under severe tension. The toll in the violence in the curfew-bound Goalpara district, meanwhile, has risen to five, he added.
The clash between police and irate locals broke out at Baghmari in lower Assam’s Sonitpur district in the early hours when people from various ‘char’ (riverine) areas and other villages gathered to protest against the blocking of a private road by a unit of the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL). The villagers have been at loggerheads with the PGCIL unit for long, over the use of the private road passing through the plant of the company.
When the authorities of the public sector unit blocked the road by putting up a boundary wall, the villagers attacked the plant’s employees. When police officials arrived on the scene, the mob turned its ire on the personnel, seriously injuring over 20 policemen.