Organized & pre-planned attack: DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta

A CORRESPONDENT

NAGAON: Tension continues for the second day at Batadroba in Nagaon on Sunday after the Batadroba PS was consigned to flame on Saturday by a large number of people from the Salnabari area near Dhing.

The police arrested five persons, including two women who allegedly brought petroleum products into the Batadroba PS campus yesterday and also set the PS on fire. The police also detained 17 other persons in connection to the gruesome incident till the time of filing of this report.

Earlier this morning, the district police administration with huge police and other security forces rushed to the Salnabari area and conducted an eviction drive. The police evicted the houses of two persons identified as Hizbul Ali and Mojibur Rahman who are relatives of the deceased - Safikul Islam and went to the PS along with those attackers yesterday, sources added.

Meanwhile, DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Special DGP GP Singh and Middle Assam DIG Saityaraj Hazarika visited Batadroba PS today. They reviewed the entire incident and took stock from the senior district police officials.

The DGP directed Nagaon SP to constitute a Special Investigative Team (SIT) to inquire into the Batadroba incident. He also instructed the district police head to inquire about the custodial death of the youth Safikul Islam by an additional superintendent of a policy-level official from the neighbouring districts like Morigaon, Hojai and Karbi Anglong.

Moreover, the DGP ordered the district police head to send the postmortem report of Safikul Islam for forensic probe on Monday next.

Interacting with the media at Batadroba today, DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta termed the entire episode as an 'organized, systematic and pre-planned attack by Ancharul Islam's group which is a branch of Al Qaeda'. He said during the preliminary police investigation, the police found its roots behind the incident. He said that master conspiracy was behind the incident. "Such acts will not be tolerated," Mahanta said.

"We are examining all movements of those people working for the Islamic fundamentalist organizations," DGP Mahanta said, adding that such organizations were trying to set up a new sleeper cell in the state as well as in the district by instigating some people.

"We have found clear-cut symptoms of instigations by fundamentalist organizations in the Batadroba PS incident as someone brought petrol and fire yesterday," Mahanta added.

Claiming the presence of various criminals, including drug mafias, dacoits among the attackers, he also said that it might be the part of the pre-planned attack on the PS to destroy the case diaries, FIRs and other documents kept in the PS during the examination of video clips as well as investigation, police confirmed the presence of several notorious drugs mafias like - Allauddin and some other criminals among the attackers.

The DGP said that during the attack on the PS, it was feared that the attackers might have stolen arms and ammunition from the PS and hence police conducted the eviction drive at the houses of two attackers at Salnabari village.

If needed, the police will move to dig out the arms and ammunition from the ground of those attackers, Mahanta added.

Meanwhile, the in-charge officer of Batadroba PS was put under suspension with immediate effect and the entire staff of the PS was called back to Nagaon police reserve last night.

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