PATNA: With the killing of a third engineer in the past four days, and facing the charge of the “Return of Jungle Raj”, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday said that the Bihar government would deal strictly with criminals.
Lalu’s RJD is a part of the current ruling alliance in Bihar, and for the first timem he spoke on the issue of governance directly. The body of Ankit Jha, who was working as a quality engineer with Reliance Telecom, was recovered from an orchard in Kashipur village within Rajapakar police station of Vaishali district on Tuesday.
Superintendent of Police Rakesh Kumar said the body bore multiple injury marks on the neck and stomach, apparently inflicted with a sharp object. This murder comes close on the heels of the daylight killing of two engineers working in a private construction company on Saturday in Darbhanga, allegedly over failure to pay protection money to a local gangster. The police is yet to make a breakthrough in the case.
“Those who have challenged law and order during my rule (during RJD govt) are doing it again,” Lalu told mediapersons, reacting to the recent spurt of crime in Bihar. “It is our government in Bihar and I appeal to the police to make Bihar crime-free by taking stringent actions against criminals and anti-social elements who are out to bring disrepute to the State government,” Lalu said.
He also advised Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to direct District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police to camp in villages and interact with the villagers to find who are involved in crimes and related activities, for better policing.
Expressing his apprehension, Lalu said it appeared to be a plan to extort ransom from other construction companies carrying out projects in Bihar by sending them a message about their designs with the murder of the two engineers. But he could not explain the spurt in serious crimes like bank robberies and other killings. The RJD chief said the extortionists apparently wanted to send a message to other construction companies through these killings to pay up.
Meanwhile, the kin of Brajesh Kumar, an engineer killed in Darbhanga, have threatened self-immolation if proper compensation and justice was not provided to the family.
Some senior BJP leaders have targeted the Nitish Kumar government for the “return of jungle raj”, as they had feared ahead of the assembly election.