In connection with stone pelting on the fleet of State Cabinet Minister Harish Chandra Durgapal by the members of BJP, CPI-Ml and Kranti lok Sangathan on Wednesday, police have registered a case under Sections 147/148/149/427/325 and Section 3 of defacement of public properties against six named persons: Purushotam Sharma, Kailash Pandey, Kamal Muni, Rajesh Shah, Basanti Devi and Vimla Rauthan and 150 unidentified people at lalkuan Police Station on Thursday.
However, tension is still simmering as the local residents led by CPI-Ml leader Purushottam Sharma protested at Carroad on Thursday and burnt the effigy of the State Government on the same issue that triggered the fracas at Bindukhatta on Wednesday: the demand of reverting the place to its previous status of revenue area, ending the municipality’s control over it.
Nainital DM Deepak Rawat said that FIRs have been lodged against the protesters who had created law and order problem, pelting the Minister’s cavalcade with stones.
There was no need of conducting an inquiry into this incident because the disturbances were expected, given intelligence inputs, he said. “Wednesday’s chaos did not take us by surprise as the locals have been protesting over this issue for the past many months,” he said.
“As a part of precaution, we had deployed senior police officers like additional SP and Deputy SP aside from adequate number of policemen at the venue of the inauguration of Municipality office in anticipation of trouble,” Rawat said.
However, CPI-Ml leader Purushotam Sharma against whom an FIR has been lodged in lalkuan police station, alleged that Congress supporters had pelted stones on the police. He further alleged that the Congress supporters had misbehaved with the women protesters. “The locals are still in a state of shock. We would not give in to pressure as it is well-known that the State government has brought the place under municipality ending its status as the revenue area under pressure from the land mafias,” he said.
“We have written to Nainital SSP, stating that the supporters of the minister Durgapal and local Congress activists had attacked the protesters, including women, with sticks during the locals’ peaceful stir. We urged the police officer to lodge FIRs against the Congress-backed hooligans,” he said, adding that with the complaint submitted to the police station being not officially received, they had approached the SSP through post.
Around 18 protesters who were booked under section 151 of IPC were released after being slapped with chalans. The lalkuan police station officer Vipin Chandra Pant said that after collecting the evidences from the incident site, an FIR has been lodged. Teams have been formed and they are investigating the case, he added.