The state government today denied that police had lathicharged teachers and students of a women's college here protesting against blockade of entrance road to their college due to construction of a convention centre two days ago.
Making a statement in the assembly, Water Resources Department (WRD) Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, in his capacity as the Home Minister in-charge, categorically denied police lathicharge on the protesters and said that the district officials tried to pacify protesters at R-Block gate and prevented them from proceeding to the state legislature premises on ground of Section 144 being clamped in the area as the state legislature was in session.
Glossing over the police lathicharge on the protesting teachers and students, he charged them with taking law in their own hands and trying to break the gate at R-Block. They were prevented from doing so by police and civil officials on duty, the minister said.
The minister also charged the protesting students with causing damage to public property by protesting and clashing with district officials and said that a case has been registered in this connection under relevant provisions of the law against the protesters at Kotwali police station and a probe was going on in the matter.
Chaudhary sought to give a political colour to the incident by saying that Patna University Students' Union (PUSU) president Ashish Kumar Sinha, who is the son of BJP MLA from Kumhrar Arun Kumar Sinha, was leading the protesters.
Nearly 1500 teachers and students of the Magadh Mahila College had taken out a procession upto the busy R-Block in the state capital and planned to gherao the state legislature to protest against blockade of their college gate road due to construction of a convention centre.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had charged the BJP with engineering the protest even as a senior BJP leader and the former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had defended the actions of the college students and teachers and asked Kumar to vacate his official residence for shifting of the convention centre if it was an obstacle to the movement of the students upto their college.
