Party worker died in police action to disperse protest: BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi

The BJP’s protest march was aimed at demanding deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav’s exit from the Nitish Kumar government in view of the new charge sheet filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

PATNA: A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker, who participated in the protest march to Raj Bhavan led by Bihar BJP president Samrat Choudhary and comprising legislators and leaders against the Nitish Kumar-led government, died of injuries sustained in the police action to disperse them, two senior party leaders said on Thursday.

Bihar BJP leader Samrat Choudhary led the protest to Raj Bhavan (PTI Photo)

Police, however, insisted that the cause of his death was unclear and that there were no injury marks on his body.

A BJP activist Vijay Kumar Singh, general secretary of the Jehanabad unit of the party, succumbed to injuries at the Patna Medical College Hospital, said Union minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai. Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi said Singh and other party workers sustained injuries when the police used force to disperse the protesters at Dakbungalow.

The BJP’s protest march was aimed at demanding deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav’s exit from the Nitish Kumar government in view of the new charge sheet filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The BJP also accused the government of backtracking on its assurance to treat school teachers as government employees and failing to create the 10 lakh jobs that it had promised.

Patna district magistrate (DM) Chandrasekhar Singh said that a person, Vijay Singh of Jehanabad was found unconscious in the Chhajjubagh area, about 700 metres from the Dakbungalow intersection. The DM said the man did not have any injury marks and that he was sent to the Patna Medical College and Hospital.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rajiv Mishra told reporters that Vijay Singh died about 30 minutes after reaching the hospital. His body has been sent for postmortem to establish the cause of death, Mishra added.

Dr IS Thakur, medical superintendent of the Patna Medical College Hospital, said there were no external injury marks on the patient when he was brought to the hospital. “We intubated him and put him on a ventilator in the intensive care unit but his ECG was flat (indicative of the fact that the patient had died),” said Dr Thakur added

Dr Thakur said the exact cause, “whether he died due to an internal injury, or after suffering a heart attack, or any other reason”, will only be known after the post-mortem examination.

The BJP had announced that it will stage a march from the historic Gandhi Maidan to the Vidhan Sabha on July 13. The proceedings of the Bihar Assembly were disrupted on the third consecutive day over the protest by the BJP.

On Thursday, the atmosphere charged up as the heavily deployed police force from Gandhi Maidan to the Bihar Assembly tried to stop the march led by Choudhary and others comprising legislators and leaders at the Dak Bungalow crossing.

Police said that the protesters sat on a dharna at Dak bungalow intersections and they were not allowing anyone to pass through.

According to the police, as they tried to pacify the protestors, some of them abused and manhandled them which led the police to use water cannon and tear gas shells. The response, the protestors pelted stones, and they also damaged the windscreens of several vehicles.

Police said that more than three dozen people, including cops and women protestors, were injured in brick batting and lathi charge.

Tejashwi Yadav has claimed that the alleged scam took place when his father and party president Lalu Prasad was the railway minister and he was a minor and years away from entering active politics.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal has alleged that the CBI is being politically misused by the BJP which rules the Centre, and pointing out that Yadav was a minor when the alleged scam took place.

The land-for-jobs scam pertains to taking land from 12 candidates in return for jobs in the Railways between 2004 and 2009. Lalu was the railway minister during this period. On July 3, CBI had filed its charge sheet against Tejashwi, Lalu and his wife Rabri Devi, and 14 others in the case.