Big relief to 28 BJP leaders including Babulal Marandi, Jharkhand HC cancels FIR

Ranchi News: Jharkhand High Court has given relief to BJP leaders. The FIR registered against 28 BJP leaders including then Union Minister Arjun Munda, BJP MLA Babulal Marandi, MP Sanjay Seth, Deepak Prakash, MLA CP Singh, Dhullu Mahato in the case of clash with police during BJP’s Secretariat march on April 11, 2023 in Ranchi has been quashed. Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi’s court gave the verdict on Wednesday after hearing the petition filed by all of them.

The Jharkhand unit of BJP had called for a secretariat siege against the failures of the then Hemant Soren government. In view of this, the police had imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 in the secretariat and surrounding areas. The police had used water cannons and tear gas to stop the protesters. They were also lathi-charged. During this, Ranchi’s Dhurva Chowk remained a battlefield for about two hours and more than 60 people were injured.

FIR was registered on the statement of Executive Magistrate
In this case, an FIR was filed on the statement of Ranchi District Administration’s Executive Magistrate Upendra Kumar, in which the accused were charged with creating a ruckus, inciting riots, violating government instructions, obstructing government work, inciting crime and causing harm to other persons.

Attempted to dismantle the barricades
It was said in the FIR that BJP’s program to gherao the secretariat was announced on April 11, 2023. For this, the Deputy Commissioner and SSP of Ranchi had jointly issued orders related to the deployment of magistrates, officers and security forces. For peace, prohibitory orders were imposed under Section 144 from 8 am to 11.30 pm on April 11 from Dhurva, Gol Chakkar to Chandni Chowk Hatia. Despite this, the named accused and unidentified activists tried to uproot the barricading, created a ruckus, threw bottles targeting the police force deployed on duty, pelted stones.

Police-administration and journalists deployed on duty were injured
Due to stone pelting, SDO Deepak Kumar Dubey, Dhurva’s SHO Vimal Nandan Sinha, Inspector Narayan Soren, Constable Manish Kumar, Constable Santosh Kumar Sharma, Anil Kumar Mahato and other policemen and journalists reporting the incident were injured. After all efforts to convince and stop them failed, on the orders of the senior officer, water was sprayed on the crowd through water cannon.

The names of 41 people were mentioned
It was said in the FIR that BJP leaders tried to incite the mob. The names of 41 people were mentioned in the FIR including MP Arjun Munda, MP Sanjay Seth, MP Nishikant Dubey, MP Samir Oraon, MP Sunil Kumar Singh, former Chief Minister Raghuvar Das, MLA Amit Mandal, MLA Babulal Marandi, MLA Viranchi Narayan Singh. Out of these, 28 had filed a petition in the High Court to cancel the FIR.

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