Huge turnout on Nawada roads on April 7 triggers debate about its size

Speed Post News Network

Nawada: The unprecedented sea of saffron-clad humanity that emerged on Nawada town’s main roads on April 7, 2017, to mark the Ramnavami celebrations has triggered a debate on number of participants.  “Are O Samba, kitne aadmi the” sums up the debate raging in Nawada. This assumes significance, for a day after, on Saturday afternoon, many people residing in the Muslim Road part of the town wore black bands on their arm besides sporting black
flags over their houses and shops to protest police high-handedness.
JD (U) MLC Salman Raquib “Munna” attributed the unprecedented turnout to the administration’s partisan role against the minority community on April 5, 2017, evening, when policemen belonging to the ‘Panther’ unit had
brutally beaten up male inmates and used unprintable expletives against women folk following the renewed incidents of tension on Khuri river bridge. The MLC said that this act of the district administration had resulted in unifying and swelling of the majority community numbers.
Nawada sadar civil SDO Rajesh Kumar and  SDPO Sanjay Pandey appeared crestfallen at the MLC’s accusation and termed it as “faltu” (ridiculous). Even Nawada DM Manoj Kumar and SP Vikas Burman, at their presser on April 6 afternoon, had admitted that minority community persons had engineered the attack on innocent persons on Khuri river bridge a day earlier leading to the arrest of 39 persons of which 9 were  let off after scrutiny.
It may be mentioned here that when shops re-opened after nearly three days and business returned to near normal in the town, the numbers in the rally was on everyone’s lips. It ranged between 70,000 to 2 lakh. A senior police official, who did not wish to be quoted, said that the figure was mammoth and not less than a lakh.