Outrage after woman cop beaten up by mob in Odisha; Congress apologises

Bhubaneswar: The Congress has apologised for a woman cop being beaten up by a mob on the rampage during a protest by party workers in Bhubaneswar yesterday, but senior Odisha leaders also insist that not all the thousands of people were Congressmen. The police, up in arms over a colleague being brutally assaulted, have arrested 35 people and promised that there will be more arrests.  

On Thursday, a crowd of more than 25,000 protestors - who Congress MLA Bhupinder Singh now says were not all party workers but also "included unemployed youth, agitating teachers and auto-rickshaw drivers unhappy with new rules" - tried to storm the Assembly to demand the resignation of Chief Minister Navin Patnaik for what they allege is his involvement in the coal block allocation scam that has rocked Parliament as well.

Prohibitory orders had been imposed which the protestors defied. As they broke through one of the barricades, the cops used tear gas to control the situation. Several protestors as well as 60 policemen were injured in the clashes that followed. Among them is 39-year-old Pramila Padhi from the Bhubaneswar City Police. Ms Padhi, in uniform, 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.

Local TV channels showed footage of protestors thrashing Ms Padhi with bamboo sticks as she lay while she was lying on the ground trying to protect herself. Eyewitnesses said she fell on to the ground after 15 to 20 people surrounded her during the clashes and then one of the men kicked her. She is at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar battling shock and trauma apart from bruises all over. She said today, "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."

At least 35 people, including those who attacked the policewoman, have been arrested for the clashes that took place outside the state Assembly yesterday, Bhubaneswar Police Commissioner Sunil Roy said, adding that more arrests will follow. Various police organisations have demanded that Congress leaders Jagadish Tytler and Niranjan Patnaik be arrested within 48 hours for provoking the violence. "We will be otherwise forced to go for a ceasework agitation," they warned.

Jagdish Tytler who is the Congress's central leader in-charge of Odisha, was leading the protesters. He apologised today. "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. "

The Congress has accused the police of violating the law by hitting people on their heads. "They should have targeted only those who jumped over the barricade instead of launching attacks on the stage erected for the rally," Bhupinder Singh said.

But Bhubaneswar Police Commissioner Sunil Roy said television footage clearly shows that the protestors 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".

In the Assembly today, where members of the ruling Biju Janata Dal held up placards condemning the violence; the Congress continued to make allegations of corruption against Mr Patnaik's government and condemned the 'brutal police attack' on their partymen. The House had to be adjourned sine die amid chaos.

Outside the Assembly, the Chief Minister condemned the act of violence, "Am deeply shocked to know of yesterday's violence. Odisha is a peace-loving state and people are against violence," he said.

After the clashes yesterday, Mr Patnaik had rejected Congress' allegations against him. "Various Congress leaders are continuing with their old habit of making false allegations against the state government," he had said.

Though the police had prepared for the protest by calling in for reinforcements in advance, the state's director general of police Prakash Mishra has said that his force was not ready for the "organised hooliganism" that broke out yesterday. DGP Mishra said the crowd had come armed with sticks and stones and that his officers handled the situation with as little force as possible.

Pinaki Mishra, an MP of the ruling BJD, has alleged that the crowd had been fuelled with alcohol and called them "mid-level lumpen elements", suggesting that they had come prepared to turn violent.

The Congress has called for another bandh on September 10 and demanded a judicial probe into "police excesses". Meanwhile Biju Janata Dal has announced it will stage a silent protest against Thursday's violent incidents on Saturday.