Since July this year a series of police atrocities has taken place in quick succession in Jharkhand State: brutal beating and death of Rupesh Swansi, a minor, in the Bundu thana police lock-up; beating up and killing of another minor youth on charges of mobile theft in the Hazaribagh police lock-up; brutal beating and forcible driving away of three villagers from a village because they were agitating against forcible land grab by NTPC in Badkagaon (Hazaribagh); beating of a journalist in Bokaro; the bestial beating and torture of a minor girl in Manika thana (Latehar district) after which a judge of the High Court called the police “an organized goonda gang” and others. The Jharkhand government has even refused to comply with a Ranchi High Court order in connection with the cruel and inhumane incident at Manika thana. All these incidents are confirmation of the indication that the State is heading towards Police Raj.
On 14 July a CPI(ML) team comprising Com. Janardan Prasad, MLA Com. Rajkumar Yadav, Com. Bhuneshwar Kewat and Com. Xavier Kujur visited Bundu, met the bereaved family, and held a mass meeting. As per the findings of the team, Rupesh Swansi of Adarsh Nagar, Bundu (Ranchi district) used to work as a newspaper boy and a cloth shop salesman to earn money for his and his sisters’ studies. He was 16 years of age. The police had made a group of informers who, instigated by SDPO Pawan Kumar, used to implicate innocent people for the benefit of both police as well as informers. On 7 July two bodyguards of Pawan Kumar picked up Rupesh at 5 pm from the cloth shop, repeatedly beat him brutally at Pawan Kumar’s residence and in two different thanas and charged him with possession of a kata (type of knife) and Rs 12,000. They took him to Bogda forest on the pretext of finding the weapon, where he fell unconscious and died. The police wanted to throw away his body in the forest, but the alertness of his family forced them to take him to RIMS where a post mortem was done which said that he died of several injuries to the body.
The family members along with thousands of people blocked the Ranchi-Tata Nagar road for 7 hours on 9 July demanding the arrest of Pawan Kumar, the 2 bodyguards and the 2 thana-incharges of Rahe and Dasham Falls. Under pressure from the people’s outrage, an FIR under Section 302 was finally registered against the accused.
The CPI (ML) was at the forefront of the 9 July road block. The Party took out a protest march in Ranchi on 10 July demanding the arrest and trial of the 4 police personnel. MLA Rajkumar Yadav demanded a CBI enquiry headed by a retired HC judge with special representatives from the Vidhan Sabha. A people’s protest meeting was also called on 21 July at Bundu against the making of Jharkhand into a Police Raj. The meeting was addressed by Rajkumar Yadav.
