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Five held for ‘breaching dyke’ in Assam get bail
On Thursday, the assistant sessions judge-2 of Cachar district, in his order, said that on perusal of the report submitted by police, the court found that none of the statements recorded during the investigation proved that these five accused breached the dyke that caused severe floods in Assam
A Cachar district court has granted bail to five persons arrested for allegedly causing a breach of a dyke near Assam’s Silchar town, which according to the officials, caused severe floods last month.
On Thursday, the assistant sessions judge-2 of Cachar district, in his order, said that on perusal of the report submitted by police, the court found that none of the statements recorded during the investigation proved that these five accused committed the crime.
“None of the witnesses stated anything implicating the accused person in any manner. Accused (persons) have been arrested on mere suspicion. The court allows them to go on bail on condition that they will co-operate in the process investigation,” the sessions judge wrote in its order issued on July 21.
According to the court’s order, the executive engineer of the water resource department, Silchar, lodged a complaint on May 23, saying that some miscreants damaged the portion of road-cum-dyke at Bethukandi. The area is located upstream of the Barak river, and due to the cut on the dyke, the entire Silchar town submerged during the flood, the complaint stated.
On June 26, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Silchar’s flood was man-made and would not have happened if the embankment at Bethukandi was not breached by some miscreants. On July 1, Sarma visited Silchar and said that people who caused the embankment would not be spared.
Following this, police arrested Kabul Khan (35), Mithu Hussain Laskar (24), Nazir Hussian Laskar (43) and Ripon Khan (21) in the first week of July. On July 13, another accused, Raju Deb (26), was arrested by Silchar police. All of them were booked under 427 of the Indian Penal Code and section 3 of the Prevention of Damages Public Property act, 1984, police said.
Ramandeep Kaur, the Superintendent of police of the Cachar district, said on Friday that it was their duty to investigate the matter based on a complaint lodged by a government department. She also informed that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Assam police, which was supposed to investigate the matter, didn’t register a case against these five persons.
“Following the chief minister’s visit, a team of CID came to Cachar district, and they investigated the matter too. But they didn’t register a case against them as per our sources of information,” she said.
Advocate Soumen Choudhary, who, along with Mehboob Hussain Mazumdar and a group of lawyers presented the bail petitions together, said that police arrested them without any proof and it was inspired by local political leaders. “During the argument, police failed to produce anything that can establish that these persons damaged the embankment. It feels like the officials were forced to arrest some people, and randomly selected a few individuals,” Choudhury said.
Another lawyer involved in the case,Mazumdar said that some government departments complained about innocent individuals because they wanted to hide their failure.
Officials from the water resource department refused to comment on the matter.
Minister for the water resource department, Pijush Hazarika, visited Bethukandi and surrounding areas on Thursday and asked the officials to assess the damages caused by the flood.
He assured that they are taking temporary measures to prevent overflow of water if flood situation arises again. After November this year, the government is planning to take steps for permanent solutions.
Hazarika also said that they are aware about stagnant water issue at Mahisa Beel near Bethukandi which in influenced the locals to cut a part of embankment but he didn’t support this.
“We understand the reason behind the step they took but we cannot support damage to public property. Those who were involved in this, will have to get punishment,” he said on Wednesday while visiting Bethukandi area.
