Patna: Angry villagers in Bihar held hostage a ruling party minister, and then locked him up in a room at a local college, after he tried to lay a foundation stone for a petrol pump installed on land allegedly belonging to an educational institute.
The incident has brought much embarrassment to the state’s ruling Janata Dal (United) government, which won a second term on a platform of restoring law and order in Bihar.
Animal Husbandry Minister Baidyanath Sahni was greeted with angry slogans and protests before being locked in the room on Wednesday evening, after he forcibly tried to lay the foundation stone for his petrol pump on land reportedly belonging to Indira Gandhi Ramji Rai College located in Samastipur district.
But the minister claims the said land belongs to him.
Villagers say the land on which the minister was trying to open a petrol pump was, in fact, donated by a local villager Surendra Chaudhary to the college but very recently the minister had allegedly got the land registered in his name fraudulently.
His act was strongly protested by the local villagers, with some even staging a sit-in to protest his move.
Unmindful of the protests, however, the minister reached the spot with dozens of supporters to complete the basic formalities on the fateful day to open his petrol pump.
The situation worsened after the minister’s supporters allegedly beat up the protesting villagers and also opened fire in a bid to chase them away.
The action only added fuel to the villagers’ fire. As the news of their beating reached the nearby areas, hundreds of villagers from neighbouring villages rushed to the spot and a bloody clash ensued, during which around a dozen vehicles of minister’s backers were set on fire, leaving dozens of persons injured from either sides.
Meanwhile another group of villagers locked the minister in one of the rooms at the college. He remained in captivity for more than four hours. It was after much effort and persuasion by the local administration that the minister could be set free and allowed to go.
Villagers have accused the local administration of siding with the minister in the whole episode. According to them, for the past three years the local administration had constantly refused to give No Objection Certificate (NOC) to the minister to open a petrol pump on the alleged land of the college keeping in view the prevailing tension in the areas but it suddenly handed him over the NOC soon after he was inducted as a minister in the new JD-U government headed by Jitan Ram Manjhi.
“We have procured the land deeds and are investigating the matter. We will not allow the petrol pump to open on the land if the land was found to be fraudulently purchased,” the local district magistrate M. Ramchnadra Du told the media on Thursday.
