Two entrepreneurs were detained by police for six hours for posing questions to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at a start-up summit held in Patna on Tuesday.
The two entrepreneurs — Nemi Kumar Saraf (43), and Suresh Kumar Sharma (46), — were among hundreds of entrepreneurs who were invited to the “4th Bihar Entrepreneurship Summit-Start-up”, organised by the Bihar Entrepreneurs Association.
Mr. Kumar was the chief guest with State Industries Minister Jai Kumar Singh and several top officials also present and released the Bihar Start-Up policy 2017 document. But when the two entrepreneurs, rose to pitch their ideas while raising issues of transparency in government approval of start-up projects and on the harassment from banks for loans, they invited the ire of the police officials. Though the Chief Minister in his speech acknowledged their suggestions and instructed officials to pay heed to their complaints, the police officials detained the duo after Mr Kumar left the venue.
Speaking of the traumatic ordeal that followed, Mr. Saraf told The Hindu said, “I, along with Suresh Kumar, was taken to the local Gandhi Maidan police station where police officials questioned us like criminals and forced us to sit there for six hours. We’re not allowed to eat, drink water or even go to toilet…our mobile phones were seized and we’re not allowed to talk even to our family members.”
Mr Saraf, a well-known social figure from Madhubani and an RTI activist, further added that when the police were quizzing him in Patna, the local police came to his house in Madhubani and interrogated his ageing parents and wife. “It was a real torture for them too…nightmare for us all,” he said.
‘Falsely implicated’
Mr. Saraf said, “I also proposed that the government should disclose the names of approved projects and give reasons for rejecting others on its official website... to make the process transparent.”
Mr Sharma from Chhaurahi village of Begusarai too spoke of his ordeal.
“I was falsely implicated in a loan case by someone who had purchased a machine from me in 2013…when I failed to get any response from any quarter, I raised the issue before the Chief Minister while asking how an entrepreneur could do business in the State...but, the policemen took me under detention,” Mr Sharma told The Hindu .
The two men who were taken into detention at around 1 p.m. were released at 8:10 p.m. and were forced to state in writing that they had been treated well and were being released in good condition by the police.
“We’d taken them under detention to get the details…name of one of them, Suresh Kumar Sharma, has come up in a case…But we released them after getting the details,” was all Patna Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj told journalists on Thursday.
Responding to the incident, State Industries Minister Jai Kumar Singh said, “Whatever had happened with the two should not have happened.” Opposition BJP leaders have demanded a response from the Chief Minister. “If somebody asks question to the Chief Minister, should he face such action,” asked senior State BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav.
