Author: R K Nandan
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: November 28, 2004
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/938721.cms
The Bihar government's offer of
a reward of Rs 3 lakh for vital information regarding the November 19 kidnapping
of two top National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) officials involved
with developing the state's rural roadways says it all, coming as it does
in the wake of the Diwali day murder in his Patna clinic of medical practitioner
Dr N K Aggarwal who had been sent a series of extortion notes by thugs.
Kidnapping and extortion has now
become the 'industry' with the highest growth-rate in Bihar. There have
been instances of kidnappers even claiming that no one can touch them since
they enjoy the patronage of the powers that be.
And with state assembly elections
due next year, the rationale of the kidnappers and gangs is that the politicians
need them more than they need doctors or engineers or industrialists!
It is, after all, the gangs which
ensure that the voters fall in line in more ways than one on the day of
polling whether it is in Siwan, Chapra or Madhepura.
Nothing illustrates this unholy
nexus more starkly than the fact that the Supreme Court wondered during
this summer's Lok Sabha elections how the supposedly jailed accused Pappu
Yadav who had been taken to the Patna Medical College Hospital for treatment
was subsequently moving around in Madhepura!
Pappu Yadav, who had been arrested
in connection with the murder of trade union activist Ajit Sarkar, is now
the Lok Sabha MP from Madhepura where he successfully contested a by-election
as a candidate of Laloo Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal.
NHPC general manager T Mandal and
chief engineer K K Singh were abducted on Friday, November 19, by armed
gangs in Vaishali district. NHPC is one of five Central agencies which
have bagged contracts to build rural roads in Bihar under the Prime Minister's
Gram Sadak Yojna.
NHPC is the only one of those five
PSUs to have started work and has now threatened to withdraw its operations
if anything happens to the two abducted officials.
The clueless Bihar government has
announced a reward for anyone who provides information leading to a breakthrough
in the case while its home commissioner is in touch with the UP and Nepal
police in case the kidnappers have crossed the state or international border.
The other Central agencies which
have bagged contracts for building rural roads are waiting to see what
happens.
Bihar has become a talking point
for the national media, somewhat akin to the position taken by Baghdad
or Falluja in the daily coverage of the international TV networks! And
the attention can only get more focused the nearer one gets to the state
assembly elections.
The inevitable questions are being
asked why the Congress, which is supporting the Mrs Laloo Yadav government
in Bihar, is keeping mum about the present situation even while Sonia,
Rahul, et al, keep harping about the "breakdown in law and order" in the
Mulayam Singh-ruled state of UP!
The situation in Bihar has come
under the spotlight of the national media following the murder of Dr Aggarwal
and the indefinite state-wide agitation by doctors protesting the government's
failure to provide any security.
Bihar's network of hospitals and
clinics was paralysed by the strike which has since been called off. Ironically,
within days of the agitation launched by the doctors, Navlesh Dubey, one
of Aggarwal's murderers, was reportedly killed by the cops in an encounter
in Patna's Rajendra Nagar colony.
It was also stated that the gang
responsible for Dr Aggarwal's murder was headed by one Bindu Singh who
is imprisoned in Bhagalpur Central Jail. The fact that the normally clueless
state police was suddenly able to crack down on the gang responsible indicates
that public pressure works even in Bihar!
All of which still does not add
up to the proverbial happy ending. Media reports from Patna indicate that
it was not just the doctors but the extortionists who struck during the
agitation! Even while the agitation was on, 20 doctors reportedly received
extortion letters asking for amounts ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.
Expressions like law and order and
public service are perhaps taken seriously only at the time of the swearing-
in of ministers! Motihari, once remembered as the birth- place of that
revolutionary writer George Orwell, is now perhaps better known as the
one-train town where the action takes place in E Nivas' 1999 release 'Shool'
where the life and career of honest police inspector Samar Pratap Singh
played by Manoj Bajpai is destroyed by gangster-turned-MLA Bacchu Yadav
played by Sayaji Shinde.
'Shool' ends with the distraught
cop gunning down Bacchu Yadav on the floor of the Legislative Assembly.
Hopefully, Bihar will find other solutions more in keeping with its name!
