Senior Bihar police officials on Thursday said they would undertake a “serious review” of the deployment of VIP bodyguards in the wake of Tuesday’s brawl in Gaya between bodyguards of Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA Surendra Yadav and a local shopkeeper over delay in delivery of a packet of sweets.
The MLA was hospitalised with burn injuries on his neck after the shopkeeper, a retired Army personnel, threw boiling oil on him during the scuffle. The shopkeeper, Dhirendra Kumar Keshari, was booked under IPC Sections 353 and 379 pertaining to bid to disrupt government functioning and theft. The bodyguards were removed from the MLA’s security and demoted to the district police line. Police complaints were lodged by both parties. No action has been taken against Mr. Yadav.
Even as leaders of the RJD, the JD(U) and the Congress called a bandh in Gaya to protest the attack on the MLA, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have come out in support of the vendor and indicated that the issue would be raised in the winter session of the State Assembly, scheduled to begin on Friday.Senior State BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi met the incarcerated shopkeeper in Gaya jail and has demanded that security be provided to him and his family.
Taking a dig on the incident, he said: “How it is possible that a police bodyguard or the MLA was doing an ‘official duty’ while purchasing a packet of sweets?”
Local BJP MLA Prem Kumar has threatened that his party and traders’ bodies would soon call for a bandh in the town. “Though we review police bodyguards every six months, such incidents do happen,” a senior police official told The Hindu .
Over 5,000 of the total 60,000-strong police workforce have been deployed as bodyguards for politicians, judges, bureaucrats and other VIPs at an annual expenditure of Rs. 170 crore. Ever since the 2011 killing of BJP MLA Kishore Keshari in Purnia, the number of bodyguards assigned to VIPs has been increased from one to three, said the official.
