House erupts, govt orders magisterial probe

The Himachal Pradesh Assembly Friday witnessed noisy scenes and sloganeering by the Opposition over the death of a youth in police firing two days ago near tara Devi on the outskirts of Shimla.

As the House assembled, the BJP legislators stood up after Speaker Brij Bihari Butail disallowed their calling attention motion relating to the death. Led by Rajeev Bindal, Suresh Bhardwaj, Randhir Sharma and Ravinder Ravi, the BJP members raised the issue and waved photocopies of newspaper reports on the incident. "It is a very serious matter. People are being shot at and allowed to bleed to death on the roads without any medical care," alleged Ravi.

The Opposition members refused to take their seats even as Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh read out a statement. He said a magisterial enquiry had been ordered and "we will take suitable action (against erring police personnel)".

Later, when calm prevailed, the chief minister said constables Ranvir Singh and Rahul were on duty on the night of January 9 when they noticed miscreants indulging in vandalism.

They caught one of the accused, Nitin. When they were interrogating him, the police personnel were attacked, and Ranvir fired some shots in self defence injuring two people. Udaiybir Singh succumbed to his injuries on January 10.

"A case has been registered against the accused and constable Ranvir," he said, adding ADM (Law and Order) Shimla is conducting the enquiry.

CM expresses shock at soldiers' killing

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh Friday expressed deep shock over the brutal killing of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani army in Mendhar Sector in Jammu and Kashmir. Making a suo moto statement in the Vidhan Sabha, Singh said, "the entire country was in a state of shock at the barbarous killing of two brave soldiers" and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved families.

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