A day after taking the oath of office, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday held a marathon meeting on the law and order situation and stressed to senior civil and police officials that "there shall be no compromise on the rule of law".
Kumar talked to IGs, DIGs, SPs and DMs via video conferencing and directed them to maintain rule of law, saying there should be "no compromise in that regard".
The Bihar chief minister told reporters after the three-hour meeting that he has given clear instructions to officials that "crime has to be curbed in all circumstances".
"Whoever is breaking the law is a criminal and should be dealt with according to the law irrespective of his standing and position," said Kumar, who has kept the home portfolio with himself.
It is significant that Kumar's first official engagement after his swearing-in on Friday was a meeting on the law and order situation in the state given that he had faced rival parties' barbs of a "return of jungle raj" over the Janata Dal-United's poll tie-up with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, whose 15-year rule drew claims that the law and order situation had worsened in Bihar.
Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav was not present at the meeting, which was attended by Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and state police chief PK Thakur.
The chief minister stressed on the need for a scientific approach for faster investigation of crimes.
He also emphasised the continuation of the practice of the holding of camp by Circle Officers and Station House Officers every week to solve land dispute cases.
Kumar told officials that the DM and SP would be held responsible for any communal incidents and warned that the response should be quick for quelling communal tension.
He also stressed on expeditious trial and conviction, saying that it had yielded good results in the past.
Meanwhile, on the day when Kumar held a state-level review of the crime situation, Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan and senior Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushil Kumar Modi paid a visit to Lalganj in Vaishali district where an SHO was killed earlier this week by a mob following the death of two persons in a road accident.
One person was also allegedly killed in police firing on protesters.
Paswan later talked to reporters in Patna and demanded a judicial probe into the alleged communal clash in Lalganj.
The Lok Janshakti Party chief alleged that the district administration was acting "under political pressure in the wake of the incident and booking party supporters at the behest of a JD-U leader who lost the poll".
Paswan questioned role of the district administration in the Lalganj incident.
"Why did the police fire on the protesters instead of a lathicharge or firing in air?" he asked.
LJP candidate Raj Kumar Sah won the Lalganj seat by beating JD-U heavyweight Munna Shukla in the just-concluded Assembly elections.
Paswan also demanded that compensation for the victims in the Lalganj incident be increased to Rs 25 lakh from Rs 4 lakh.
Sushil Modi said that the Lalganj incident was the result of "administrative failure."
Pointing out that police generally resort to lathicharge to disperse protesters or fire tear gas shells, he said that in Lalganj, however, they had "fired directly towards chest of the 16-year-old victim boy and not below the waist, which is the standard practice."
Former Chief Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha leader Jitan Ram Manjhi told reporters that Kumar holding a meeting on law and order as the first agenda of his new government indicated how he was bothered by the "spiralling" crime situation.
"I know Kumar will have to face pressure in maintaining law and order and it will be a black day for the state when he succumbs to the pressure," Manjhi said in an apparent reference to RJD.
He alleged that HAM supporters were being targeted in many places to "settle political score" and also claimed that women from the weaker sections had faced "harassment" in Makhdumpur in Jehanabad, where he lost the poll battle.
An official statement said that, during Saturday's meeting on the law and order situation, Kumar told DMs and SPs to talk to public representatives and people "but do what is in accordance with the law".
He told SPs that "for me face is not important but performance is".
The chief minister reminded officials of the government's "zero-tolerance" approach towards corruption. For officials engaging in corruption, he said that, besides administrative punishment, there was the provision for the termination of job, too.
