New Delhi: Nineteen people, two of them closely related to children who died in the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome outbreak in Bihar, have been named in an FIR for staging a roadblock to protest the lack of health facilities and scarcity of water in the state.
According to Sanjay Kumar, SHO of Bhagwanpur police station, an FIR was lodged on June 18 when residents of Harivanshpur village had staged a sit-in on the highway connecting Vaishali with Muzaffarpur.
“Nineteen persons were named in the FIR, which also speaks about 30 other unnamed ones. None of the identified people have been arrested so far and investigations are on to identify the unnamed accused,” he said.
The FIR has been filed under Indian Penal Code Sections 147, 148 and 149 (rioting and unlawful assembly), 188 (disobedience to order), 283 (obstruction in public way), 353 (assault) and 504 (breach of peace).
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“As the state government had not been listening to us even after children had been dying, several of us protested on the national highway, demanding water tankers. I was surprised to see my name among 19 accused for breach of peace,” Rajesh Sahni, whose seven-year-old daughter died due to AES, told the Indian Express. According to him, it was the protest that made the government begin doing a door-to-door check on children.
Asked about media reports that the accused included close relatives of children who have died since June 1 after being afflicted from AES, the SHO said, “It has come to our notice that among the named accused two had lost their close ones to the disease.”
“However, we wish to point out that this was not known to us till the lodging of FIR. Blocking traffic on a highway warranted legal action and we were duty-bound to register a case against those who were involved. Nevertheless, proper action will be taken in due course,” he added.
Ramdev Sahni, who lost his two-year-old daughter, has also been named in the FIR. “I came to know about being named in the FIR only two days ago. I am still mourning my daughter’s loss. Is demanding water tankers a crime? This shows the very attitude of the government towards the poor,” he told Indian Express.
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Meanwhile, official sources in Patna refuted reports in a section of the media that the accused have been booked in the wake of their roadblock allegedly obstructing the cavalcade of chief minister Nitish Kumar who had visited a government hospital in Muzaffarpur on the same day to take stock of the situation.
“The highway does fall on the Vaishali-Muzaffarpur border but the Chief Minister did not travel by road. He had reached Muzaffarpur by a helicopter which he again used for return. The VIP movement took place inside Muzaffarpur town and was not affected by whatever was happening on the highway,” sources told PTI.
According to the state health department, more than 700 children have been afflicted by AES in 20 districts since June 1 out of whom more than 150 have died. Out of these, 131 deaths have taken place at two hospitals of Muzaffarpur alone which have admitted a total of 600 brain fever patients so far this month.
(With PTI inputs)