large-scale violence was witnessed across the State during a daylong ‘Bharat Bandh’ called by the Tribal and Dalit organizations on Monday against the recent Supreme Court ruling to alter the provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. More than a dozen police personnel, including City SP Aman Kumar and Kotwali DSP Rajkumar Mehta were injured during a scuffle between hostel students and police force, which was called to calm down the protesters pelting stones on the vehicles and the policemen at Women’s College and Adivasi Hostels in Ranchi.
Police had to resort to lathi charge and shelling tear gas canons after the mob went out of control, following which the protesters ran into the hostel and locked inside the rooms and were later pulled out and arrested by the police.
“As soon as we got information that the students have blocked road near Adivasi Hostel and were pelting stones on the vehicles passing through it. As we reached there, they started throwing stones bamboo sticks on the police force which hit some of the police personnel and officials also,” said the City SP Aman Kumar. looking at the seriousness of the situation extra police force was called and lathi-charge was applied along with teargas to disperse the crowd, he added.
Earlier, the Police also had to resort to lathi charge and tear gas to disperse the crowd injuring some of the girls who were later taken to hospital following protesters assembled near Women’s College Girls’ Hostel started shouting slogans against police demanding Women Police personnel. Force was applied after Police took some of them into custody and started taking them to camp jail in a bus, girls started pelting stones and damaged it badly while trying to stop it.
“Action will be taken against those who were found in the hostel and those who managed to escape by jumping over the boundary wall after identifying them,” said the SP. Protesters took to the streets at several places in the City but baring Adivasi Hostel and Women’s College Hostel, no any untoward incident took place at anywhere, said the SP.
“A total of 763 arresting took place in Ranchi till late afternoon and were sent to the camp jail,” said Kumar.
Meanwhile, normal life also remained disrupted in other parts of the State where protesters stopped several trains including Delhi bound Kolkata Rajdhani Express in Koderma, while a truck was gutted into fire in Jamshedpur. Though train service remained unaffected all over the State, some of the trains were running late due to the hindrance created by the protesters in Sahebganj, Palamu and other districts as they remained stranded on the tracks for several hours on different locations.
“The situation was normalized after the Rail Protection Force and State Police cleared the tracks by arresting the protesters,” said a railway official requesting anonymity.
According to an official release issued by Police Headquarters in Ranchi, adequate security arrangements done by the State police to deal with the protesters with a direction to arrest them as soon as they take it to the streets.
“A total of 5738 protesters were arrested till 4 pm from all over the State with maximum arresting of 1034 persons in Dhnabad while minimum 19 arrestings were done from lohardaga,” it stated. In Jamshedpur also 891 protesters were arrested, while more than 600 people including 200 women were arrested in Dhanbad.
Four policemen of lesliganj Police Station in Palamu were also injured when an unruly crowd of bandh supporters pelted stones at the police vehicle. Whereas in Garhwa, the protesters gathered on NH 75 near Ranka More and blocked the road bringing the traffic to a standstill.
The Bandh supporters torched of a goods laden truck at Barabanki under MGM police station on NH-33 after stopping it forcing the driver and cleaner to get off the truck at around 4.30 am between Jamshedpur and Ghatshila . The truck was carrying garment products from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh to Cuttack in Odisha. Some miscreants had
Other Political Parties like Congress, RJD, JVM, CPI, CPI(M), JMM, Central Sarna Samiti, Adivasi Chatra Sangh and several other Tribal and Dalit organizations extended support to the Countrywide ‘Bharat Bandh’ in Jharkhand saying that the NDA lead Central Government wanted to weaken the Tribals and Dalits by diluting the provisions under the act. The apex court had, last month, diluted the provisions of immediate arrests under the SC/ST Act.