Source: .indiatimes.com
RANCHI: BJP’s six-member fact-finding team of elected representatives from across the country on Thursday demanded a central agency probe into the killings of seven adivasi Christians at Burugulikera village in West Singhbhum. In a report submitted to the party’s national president J P Nadda in Delhi, the team said an agency like the CBI or NIA should conduct an investigation into the January 19 massacre. The team also met home minister Amit Shah in Delhi.
According to the team report, Pathalgarhi was the reason behind the massacre. “Pathalgarhi supporters were emboldened after the mahagathbandhan government came to power and the first decision taken by the state cabinet was to withdraw cases against the Pathalgarhi supporters who flouted the Constitution at will.” The fact-finding team has urged Shah to review the mahagathbandhan government’s move to withdraw the cases against the accused.
After submitting the report, Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand Sameer Oraon, who was part of the team, accused the state government of trying to cover up the incident and sheltering the accused. Apart from Oraon, the six-member team included Lok Sabha MPs Jasvantsinh Bhabhor (Gujarat), Bharti Pawar (Maharashtra), Gomti Sai (Chhattisgarh) and John Barla (West Bengal) and Khunti MLA Nilkanth Singh Munda.
Oraon claimed that during their visit, the team found that the Pathalgarhi activists had demanded that the villagers should stop using Aadhaar and PAN cards and send these documents back to the Governor as a mark of protest to proclaim tribal rights of self-governance under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. “When a section of villagers protested against the diktat, their leaders were killed. The villagers were beaten and hacked to death. Many of them were decapitated,” said Oraon.