New Delhi: After the Delhi Police lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against unknown persons on the complaint of a purported pellet gun victim, following a sit-in staged by Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, the Congress said that a basis for probe into the alleged police excesses during the July 20 Parliament march, “has been established”.
Gandhi staged more an over seven hour sit-in outside the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police at Delhi’s Parliament Street Police Station, protesting the alleged refusal of the police to register an FIR on Sahil Lochab’s complaint.
Speaking to IANS after the agitation was called off, Congress leader Salman Khurshid said: “The registration of an FIR means that the investigation, the probe into the incident where a young man was injured by pellets striking his eyes and body, will now commence. It establishes who bears the responsibility, who is being accused, and who must answer for it. Until now, there was no FIR, so there was no basis for an investigation; today, that basis has been established.”
Congress MP Imran Pratapgarhi called the filing of an FIR a “massive victory” for the students, “born of Rahul Gandhi’s steadfast resolve”.
“I salute the Leader of the Opposition. Amidst this sweltering heat, he sat with the students and declared that if the FIR was not registered, even if it meant sitting in protest for fifty days, he would sit right there with them. He has demonstrated that the world bows down; one simply needs the will to make it bow,” he told IANS.
Pratapgarhi added: “In the coming days, the government will have to bow down further as the youth of the country are now aware. Students’ concerns are the biggest issue for Rahul Gandhi ji. The BJP’s goal is (spreading) hatred while ours is to fight the battle of the country’s students.”
Congress MP Kumari Selja asserted that LoP Gandhi, along with party leaders and workers, sat in the sweltering heat throughout the day “solely to stand with the victim’s family”.
“The government claimed that no such gun was fired, yet everyone witnessed what happened to this boy. Pellets are still lodged in his chest and hands. The simple demand was merely to register an FIR, but the family was made to run from pillar to post, and the FIR was not allowed to be filed. Rahul Gandhi was compelled to come here and sit with them; only then was the FIR finally registered, that too since the government came under pressure, not out of its own will,” she told IANS.
Calling it a “victory” for the party, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said: “The work that could have been done in half an hour was forcefully dragged till evening.”
(IANS)
