State BJP Spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo and party workers were detained by Chandwa police in Latehar today when they were going to Latehar to meet the DC Abu Imran there in connection with the death of two girls suspected to have died of the food poisoning.
At Chandwa on NH 75 the local police intervened and detained them. Pratul said he and his team then squatted there but later on they were taken down to the nearby inspection bungalow at Chandwa where they were detained for more than four hours.
Pratul said his detention was illegal and unlawful as he and his team were going to seek aid for the family that has lost two girls in the age group of 5 years to one and a half years after eating ring snacks and mixture only to get sick horribly leading to their hospitalisation at the RIMS Ranchi where the two died on June 5 and 7 during their treatment.
Pratul said he failed to understand as to how his and his partymen going to Latehar to meet the DC was any objectionable and they were detained.
Officer in charge of the Chandwa police station Madan Sharma said there was an order from above to detain Shahdeo and others and he just did what was told.
Police officer Sharma declined to make any further explanation. They were let off late in the evening, said police sources.
Sources said there was the programme of Chief Minister Hemant Soren in Latehar today. It was a divisional programme of the distribution of the KCC there among the Birsa Kissans.
An officer in this district refusing to be identified said the Latehar administration knew Pratul and his team would draw more attention or might cause chaos and so Chandwa police were put on the job to detain Pratul and others some 24 kilometers away from Latehar . This officer said the detention of Pratul and others made him and his team's motto for help to the bereaved family a household issue in Latehar.
Pratul when he was speaking to this correspondent said police officials were telling him to switch off his phone but this spokesperson who knows how to say maximum with minimum of words had told the Pioneer all the relevant information about his and others detention.
Caption: State BJP Spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo along with party workers being taken to the Inspection Bungalow at Chandwa in Latehar on Thursday .