The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India ‘s pluralist and tolerant ethos, has strongly condemned the shocking and inhumane killing of six innocent villagers, including two women and an infant, in the Forbesganj district of Bihar. IAMC has called upon the state government to ensure that the guilty are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
On June 3, 2011, residents of the Rampur and Bhajanpur villages under Forbesganj block in Araria district came out, after the Friday Prayer, to protest against the blockade of the connecting road between the two villages for a factory. Without using any other measures to disperse the crowd, the police opened fire on the protestors. When protestors ran, they were chased all the way into their homes, where the police entered and killed them, including two women and an infant at point blank range.
“Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, and we share in their grief and feeling of betrayal,” said Shaheen Khateeb, President, IAMC.
“The barbarism and lawlessness coming from those entrusted with upholding the rule of law, is symptomatic of the deeper malaise of radical sectarian ideologies having infiltrated the ranks of the police and the paramilitary”, added Mr. Khateeb.
Videos of the bodies of victims, obtained by news portal twocircles.net, show bullet marks on the head, neck, chest and abdomen, and evidence that the bullets were fired at point blank range. Moreover, the videos also show bullet marks on the walls and windows of the homes.
Although the judicial probe ordered by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is a step in the right direction, IAMC believes preventing such horrific incidents from being repeated requires a stronger reaction from the state and central government. The propaganda against the region launched by the BJP and ABVP, with baseless allegations of the Muslim-majority villages being a “haven for terrorists”, played a decisive role in this senseless loss of life.
NCW Team to Visit Forbesganj
The Union Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath on June 15 announced that the government would soon send a team of National Commission for Women (NCW) to Bihar to probe into the killing of a woman and child in Forbesganj in Araria. When the issue of killing of a pregnant woman and a six-month-old baby was raised with the minister, she said that her ministry would soon send a team of NCW to Forbesganj as picture coming from Bihar was very disturbing.
“First we will see the finding of the NCW and if the report is not satisfactory, we would demand a CBI probe into whole incident,” she said adding that such incidents are condemnable whether it happened in Bihar or some other parts of the country.
On June 3 the Bihar police brutally killed four villagers, including a pregnant woman and a six-month-old baby when they were protesting against establishment of a glucose factory which intended to block their way to their home in Forbesganj area of Araria district, about 350 km from Patna.