Farmers' stir: Ex-Mandsaur district collector, former SPs suspended

Bhopal: A fortnight after five farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur district, three senior officers, including the then collector Swatantra Kumar Singh and SP O P Tripathi, were suspended on Wednesday ‘for failing to maintain law and order’.

The third official who was suspended is Saikrishna S Thota, the then Mandsaur city superintendent of police.

The suspension orders were issued by the state government late on Wednesday evening, a senior state functionary said in Bhopal.

"Prima facie, they were held responsible for failing to maintain law and order during the farmers' agitation," he said.

During their suspension period, Singh will be posted at the Mantralaya (secretariat), while Tripathi and Thota will be attached to the police headquarters in Bhopal, according to the government order.

Singh is an IAS officer, while Tripathi and Thota are from the Indian Police Service.

The farmers' protest, which began on June 1, took a violent turn on June 6, when five agitators died in police firing at Mandsaur. Soon after the violence, Singh and Tripathi were transferred. Thota, too, was shifted from the city.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore each to the next of the kin of the deceased farmers. The farmers were agitating for a debt relief and remunerative prices for agricultural products.