The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will lodge FIRs against the DGP, the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar twin city Police Commissioner and the Bhubaneswar DCP at all the police stations across the state on Friday.
The saffron party is taking such a step in protest against the alleged police excesses on Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) activists while they were marching towards the Odisha Assembly on Tuesday over alleged deteriorating law and order situation particularly following the murder of minister Naba Das.
Addressing a press meet at the party headquarters on Thursday, BJP state general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan informed about the party’s plan, saying the BJP is going to lodge FIRs against the DGP, the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar twin city Police Commissioner and the Bhubaneswar DCP at all the police stations.
“On March 4, the party will stage demonstrations in front of all SP offices across the state,” informed Harichandan.
“During my 35 years long student politics career, I participated in and saw many protests. During protests, scuffles with policemen, stone pelting and lathi charges are common. The police department’s job is to restrain the protesters from the barricade points. I have never seen in my 35-year-long student politics career that police resorting to sabotage a strike by arresting agitators using several Sections,” said Harichandan.
“On that day, when the BJYM activists reached Lower PMG and tried to cross the barricades, a police officer kicked one of our activists which has been captured in cameras of media channels. The police department and the Home Minister need to clarify what empowered the police officer to kick an activist. This led to a scuffle between the police and the BJYM activists. Because of this, the levying of Section 307 indicates the conspiracy of the government to sabotage our movement against deteriorating law and order situation,” lambasted Harichandan.
“The police’s job is to check the protesters from going to their targeted locations. I want to know which magistrate passed the order to kick our activists. Which police commissioner passed the order to rain blows? Which DGP ordered to trample the BJYM activists?” he asked.
“Later, the BJYM activists went to the police station to lodge a complaint against the police officers including the DGP, police commissioner and DCP. But unfortunately enough, the police didn’t register a case. This indicates that you (police officers) will resort to excesses on our activists but not coming under the purview of law,” he lashed out.
“A minister was murdered in broad daylight. A policeman murdered him. Even though more than a month has passed, the government has no answer as to what was the motive and who was behind the murder. When we are urging the state government to take corrective measures as the law and order situation is deteriorating, the government instead resorting to crushing our voices,” he added.
“If our complaint is not registered at police stations, we will have no way out but to knock on the court’s door. We will lodge complaints at the courts across the state,” he said.
(Reported by Harihar Chand, OTV)