RANCHI, Aug 26:
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das told the assembly today that Congress MLA Nirmala Devi was apprehended following a warrant amidst opposition allegations of gagging people’s representatives while leaving coal mafia.
“It (arrest) was on a warrant of arrest,” he said, adding, law is equal for all and its violation would not be tolerated.
Das’s reply came after Congress MLA Alamgir Alam sought to know why Nirmala Devi was arrested yesterday from outside the Assembly gate despite his assurance two days ago to a Congress delegation, which had requested his intervention to prevent it.
Nirmala Devi was arrested in connection with violence in Hazaribagh on August 14 during an anti-land acquisition rally. She and her husband, former minister Yogendra Sao and their supporters were accused of violating Section 144 CrPc in the area and a series of IPC sections were levelled against them.
Speaker Dinesh Oraon, who was informed of the arrest by Hazaribagh superintendent of police, read out a series of IPC sections lodged against the MLA, including section 307 (attempt to murder).
Expressing concern about the MLA, who came to the House, the Speaker said the chair would have taken exception had the arrest been made inside the assembly premises.
Leader of the opposition and JMM working president Hemant Soren intervened and accused the BJP government of gagging the voices of the representatives of the people.
Soren, a former chief minister, also told the chair that he could produce a recorded voice of an official as evidence against “unbridled” officials and alleged that the MLAs were being gagged while leaving the coal mafia.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Saryu Roy said the administration did not give permission to Nirmala Devi and Sao to hold the rally in a school ground on August 14 because it would disrupt studies, but they violated the prohibitive orders.
Roy said Sao, who was a minister in the erstwhile Hemant Soren government, had in fact been arrested earlier in connection with raising a naxal outfit.
The agitation against acquisition of land by Nirmala Devi and Sao was not new as they had been holding such programmes for about five years at Barkagaon in Hazaribagh district, Roy said, adding, the government had already increased compensation for farmers giving up land from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh (per acre) as per the previous Act.
The couple, he accused, was indulging in the agitation for self-interest and not in the interest of the people. (PTI)
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