PATNA/ NEW DELHI, August 1: Utter lawlessness prevailed in Bihar today after a bandh called by the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the state turned violent. So much so that the Patna High Court intervened with State Chief Justice B N Lal in an unprecedented direction asked the citizens to file affidavits for any injury sustained during the day-long bandh.

This assumes significance in the wake of the recent Kerala High Court order imposing a ban on bandhs on the grounds of illegality in that state.

The Chief Justice was so perturbed by the violence which included an attack on a group of lawyers that he summoned top officials including the home secretary, the home commissioner and the director-general of police and posed a pointed question as to why the Rapid Action Force (RAF) was not deployed.

This is in sharp contrast to developments in Delhi which indicated that the call for army action to arrest Laloo, allegedly over the oral advice of the chief justice,did not find favour.

Home Minister Gupta assured the Upper House that a high-level probe would be conducted in the matter. Meanwhile, normal life was badly hit by violence and intimidation as soon as RJD supporters descended on streets, in many places wielding lathis and lethal weapons to enforce the bandh in protest against what they viewed as the CBI ``falsely implicating'' Yadav in the fodder scam case.

Irate RJD supporters held up rail and road trafic in several parts, damaged vehicles and roughed up many who ventured out.

The streets here wore a deserted look with shops and business establishments closed, long distance buses cancelled and educational institutions declaring a holiday.

Bandh supporters disrupted railway traffic at Patna, Gaya, More, Khusurpur, Ara, Munger and Motihari, raiwlay sources said.

RJD MP from Patna Ramkripal Yadav, and some of his supporters were injured in a lathicharge by the railway protection force, officials said.

The bandh was reported to be near total in major towns like Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Giridih, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Purnea and Munger.

Meanwhile, in Parliament Bihar MPs sought to draw the Speaker's attention to the emergent situation in Bihar, MPs from other states were on their feet saying the House was being converted into the Bihar Assembly since events in that state tended to dominate the proceedings in the House.

P J Kurien from Kerala said every day the Lok Sabha was being hijacked to discuss the stuation in Bihar to the detriment of other states' interests.

At this, Nitish Kumar retorted that members of Parliament could not remain silent spectators to the happenings in Bihar and in its time of trouble the MPs from Bihar expected the support of their counterparts from all the other states.

With the most vocal of the Bihar MPs, Nitish Kumar and Pappu Yadav, joined by others like D P Yadav and Sukhdev Paswan both Janata Dal and the CPI's Ramashray Prasad Singh, all shouting at the same time, nothing could be made out. It left Forward Bloc MP, Chitta Basu, in the Chair, with no choice but to adjourn the House for lunch.

Toofani to surrender

Two members of the erstwhile Laloo Prasad Yadav ministry, Bhola Ram Toofani and Vidyasagar Nishad, besides former Union minister C P Verma, are likely to surrender before the designated CBI court tomorrow, in a case relating to a conspiracy angle in the fodder scam.

Sources close to them said today that they might surrender before the designated judge S K Lal, tomorrow.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.