Under the order of State Government Divisional Commissioner and Deputy Inspector General of police, Palamu conducted a joint probe into the police firing at Bhoot Mela in Chhaterpur sub-division on Monday.
Commissioner JP lakra and DIG Saket Kumar Singh spent hours there in the village located near the Jhariwa river where Bhoot Mela was held. One person was killed in the police firing last week. The two inspected the place of occurrence, met the injured and spoke to a cross section of villagers there.
DIG Saket K Singh confirmed to have conducted the probe with the Commissioner lakra but declined to share the findings of the probe saying the joint probe report would be sent to the State Government.
However, sources said the two top officers did the probe very minutely and precisely and were most pursuant if the police firing was at all inevitable or was avoidable. Sources said people there trust these officers most for their transparent approach.
As per the sources, the Bhoot Mela was gradually drifting towards more and more atrocious as sources said widows and old women were coerced to come to the Bhoot Mela where these widows and old women were subject to incivility and were made to respond as to who the other women in the area who practice witchcraft. Sources said the widows were made to stand in water to divulge the names of witches in the villages.
When DIG was confronted with this question by the Pioneer on Tuesday October 13 he had very little to hide saying ' Such a report did reach us. This was going on since September 5 and the day was not any far off when police was but to step in with force'.
The Pioneer also wanted to know from DIG if the villagers or the gathering in the Bhoot Mela did not surround the police and IRB contingent strategically from three sides the DIG said this was ( read surrounding of security forces) there.
Sources said concoctions are too profuse with regard to the Bhoot Mela that any one aiming at its stoppage had to undergo a kind of convulsion here. DIG said he and the commissioner were told of these stories which were a mere concoction but since the mass there was saying one had to hear it.
The BJP MlA Chhaterpur Radha Krishan Kishore has gone on record saying that at this Bhoot Mela the police and the IRB jawans over reacted which if the forces had used common wisdom would have been avoided.
The BJP MlA further charged the security forces with keeping him un-informed of this action knowing full well that it was more an issue of dark faith than of any law and order and when the situation plunged into worst by police firing he had to do a great damage control exercise to calm down the boiling anger of the masses there.