BJP government insulted farmers: Congress on Mandsaur firing report
New Delhi, June 21: Condemning the S.K. Jain report on the firing on farmers in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur last year, Congress on Thursday said it has termed the killed farmers as "anti-social elements".
Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said that the government is "not only cheating the farmers but also humiliating and insulting them".
The Jain inquiry committee was set up by Shivraj Singh Chouhan government to probe the Mandsaur firing incident.
Tiwari said the report justified the firing against the farmers, and gave a clean chit to the police and the paramilitary forces.
"... Nobody is guilty of firing, the police, collector, or the CRPF and terms the farmers who were killed as anti-social elements.
"We condemn this report. The government should have expressed solidarity with their families. How can you call them anti-socials," he said.
"They have insulted all the farmers of the country. It is a murder and it exposes Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), who calls the farmers 'annadata' (provider of food)."
Mocking Modi over his claim of doubling farm incomes by 2022, Tiwari said: "PM said farmers' income would be doubled. The increase in the prices of diesel has led to the increse in prices of components like seeds, compost. But farmers are not getting anything.
"The PMO is spreading propaganda about farmers regularly. As being publicised, the farmers are not getting 50 per cent more than the actual cost of production."
He said that the Finance Ministry had promised to provide Minimum Support Price to farmers, but without adding C2 (Comprehensive Cost), while the crop insurance scheme benefits insurance companies and not farmers.
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Mathura boat capsize tragedy: Death toll climbs to 13
Mathura (UP)(PTI): With the recovery of two more bodies on Sunday, the death toll in the boat capsize incident in the Yamuna river in Mathura has climbed to 13, officials said on Sunday.
Search for three more missing persons is underway.
Superintendent of Police (Rural) Suresh Chandra Rawat said renewed search efforts led to the recovery of the body of a college student, identified as Dinki Bansal, near Devraha Baba Ghat and that of a man identified as Rishabh Sharma approximately 3 km away from the accident site.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon when a boat carrying over two dozen tourists, primarily from Punjab, hit a floating drum of a pontoon bridge and capsized near Kesi Ghat in Vrindavan.
Most of the victims were from Jagraon and Dugri areas of Ludhiana district.
Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) along with the district administration and local police were actively engaged in the search for the missing pilgrims.
However, strong currents of the Yamuna river and the significant depth of the water at the ghats are proving a hindrance.
Circle Officer (Mant) Sandeep Singh said the Yamuna river stretch extending from Keshi Ghat to Gokul Barrage has been divided into seven sectors.
The search for the missing individuals will now be conducted within this specific 20-square-km zone. A Station House Officer (SHO) has been designated as the in-charge for each sector.
Acting on the orders of the DIG (Agra Range), seven SHOs will oversee operations across the seven sectors of river Yamuna.
Giving details about the operation, Additional District Magistrate (Finance and Revenue) Pankaj Kumar Verma, citing NDRF officials, on Saturday had said although the search for the missing persons is currently focused within a 14-km radius from the spot where the boat had capsized, there is a possibility that they may have been swept much further downstream.
SHO of Vrindavan police station Sanjay Pandey said boat operator Pappu was arrested late on Friday night.
He is accused of failing to provide life jackets to passengers before allowing them to board the boat, and operating the boat at high speed. This resulted in the boat losing control and colliding with a pontoon bridge's drum, which led to the accident, officials said.
Police have registered a case and also arrested the contractor, Narayan Sharma, responsible for the repair work on the pontoon bridge.
Rawat said that on Friday evening, police registered a case under section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against the boatman Pappu (alias Dauji) and Sharma, and subsequently arrested them.
According to the case details, Pappu's boat did not have any safety equipment or provisions whatsoever.
Moreover, despite repeated pleas from pilgrims, Pappu operated the boat at high speed. By the time he realised the danger upon approaching the pontoons of the bridge, it was already too late.
Consequently, after colliding with a pontoon drum, the boat lost control and capsized. It has also come to light that he is among those operators who have not obtained the requisite license to operate a boat.
Sharma was carrying out the work of dismantling and reassembling the pontoon bridge without providing any prior notification.
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