Odisha clashes: Jagdish Tytler booked for criminal conspiracy; Congress files counter FIR

Bhubaneswar: After the Bhubaneswar Police filed criminal conspiracy cases against Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler and Niranjan Patnaik in connection with Thursday's clashes outside Odisha Assembly, the party has filed a counter case against the state government and the police. The First Information Report or FIR filed by the Congress blames them for alleged "brutalities" and "excesses" against party workers.

The clashes broke out on Thursday when close to 25,000 Congress workers were protesting outside the Assembly to demand the resignation of Chief Minister Navin Patnaik for what they allege is his involvement in the coal block allocation scam. Mr Tytler, who is in-charge of party affairs in the state, was leading these workers.

Police had put prohibitory orders in the area, which the Congress workers defied. As some of them broke through one of the barricades to storm the Assembly, the cops resorted to tear gas to control the situation. Several protesters as well as 60 policemen were injured in the clashes that followed.

While the Bhubaneswar Police says protesters threw stones at policemen first, the party alleges that the cops violated the law by hitting people on their heads. The Congress also insists that not all the thousands present during the protests were Congressmen.

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Among those injured in the clashes is 39-year-old Pramila Padhi from the Bhubaneswar City Police. Ms Padhi was brutally assaulted by a mob on the rampage. Local TV channels showed footage of protesters thrashing her with bamboo sticks as she lay on the ground trying to protect herself.

Ms Padhi has alleged that she was attacked after Mr Tytler called for barricades to be broken. "I was trying to persuade people to stay calm when 30 to 40 of them caught hold of me, dragged me along and even molested me. They kicked and beat me up. They attacked me as soon as Jagdish Tytler called on party workers to break the barricades," the woman cop has told the Press Trust of India.

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Ms Padhi is at a private hospital battling shock and trauma apart from bruises all over. She was on duty near the Congress Bhavan when the clashes began yesterday; she was a deployed to guard a woman Congress leader, and not to control the crowd.

So far, 35 people have been arrested for the clashes and violence. And several Congress leaders have been booked for charges like criminal conspiracy, rioting, causing grievous injury, endangering lives of others, outraging modesty, reports the Press Trust of India.

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Yesterday, the Congress apologised for the assault on the woman cop, but insisted that the crowd present outside the Assembly on Thursday included "unemployed youth, agitating teachers and auto-rickshaw drivers unhappy with new rules."

"We are sorry that the woman cop got injured," Mr Tytler said, but quickly added that "there are two sides to the story. Our people have also been injured. The cops attacked us first. "

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Alleging that the police attacked party workers first, Congress MLA Bhupinder Singh said, " They should have targeted only those who jumped over the barricade instead of launching attacks on the stage erected for the rally."

But Bhubaneswar Police Commissioner Sunil Roy said television footage clearly shows that the protesters threw stones at policemen around the time the last speeches were delivered by Congress leaders. The police, he said, used utmost restraint in using water canons and tear gas shells to disperse the crowd. But the mob kept coming back to attack the policemen and it was then that they decided to chase them away, he said. Mr Roy said the Congress leaders who had organised the rally would be taken to task for violating the conditions of the licence granted to them to hold a "peaceful rally and demonstration".

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The Congress has called for a bandh on September 10 to protests against what it calls "police excesses".