BJP MP’s son held for beating journo & family

Bhopal: Local police late on Tuesday night arrested BJP MP Kamalbhan Singh Maravi’s son Devendra and the latter’s friend in their native village of Jamgala in north Chhattisgarh district of Sarguja on charges of assaulting a journalist and his parents for exposing corruptions in implementation of government scheme in their area.

Sarguja district superintendent of police (SP) Sadanand Kumar raided the MP’s house late on Tuesday  night and arrested his son Devendra (32) as well as the other accused Shivwrat Singh following a complaint lodged against them by Rajesh Gupta, a journalist working for a Raipur-based vernacular daily, investigators in the case said on Wednesday. Both the accused have been booked under sections 294(abuse in public), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 323(voluntarily causing hurt) of Indian Penal Code (IPC), police said.

According to the complaint, Devendra and his friend broke into the house of the scribe on Tuesday and thrashed him black and blue allegedly for reporting irregularities in the implementation of  “Nal-Jal” scheme of the government in their village.

The journalist’s parents, Duhan Das (55) and Janaki Bai (50), were also beaten brutally by the accused duo when they tried to come to the rescue of their son.

His mother Janaki Bai suffered serious bleeding injuries all over her body following the assault.

Later, a delegation of local scribes met the Sarguja district collector Kiran Kaushal to demand action against the accused.

The newspaper’s editor also wrote a letter to the chief minister Raman Singh seeking his intervention in the matter to bring the culprits to book.