Give up arms or face commando action, Gujjars told

Police can encounter with Jagan dacoit alone but not with thousands of protestors claiming his support and sitting beside him simply because in commando operation, many innocent people might be killed, he said.

Health Minister N S Rajvi said many of those killed and injured had received pellets and not bullets of .303 rifles possessed by police.

The bodies kept by protestors would decay, if the postmortem was not done at the earliest, Rajvi said adding they (Gujjars) wanted to hide the cause of their deaths as many of them might have died due to firing from their side also.

Roads and highways were jammed by protestors at 35 places in the state, a bus was set on fire, and a few incidents of retaliation with police were averted, Kataria said adding but the roads were later cleared for traffic.

The supply of essential commodities including food being transported to protesting Gujjars were stopped, cellular companies were asked to put jammers in the affected towns of Bharatpur, Dausa and Alwar districts, he said.

Petrol pumps on affected routes and cable TV networks were also directed to stop the services to cooperate with the administration, he said.

“The state government wants that the protestors should leave the rail track, hand over the bodies and come up for talks,” he said.

“Hathiyar se samjhota nahin ho sakta…voh sarkar ko chunauti nahin de sakte…muje agar commando action lena para to dhukhi man se loonga (arms can not bring agreement…they can not challenge the government…if I had to take commando action, I will get sad), Kataria said.

They should not test our patients and limits… It (commando) could be any moment of the day, he warned.

Kataria said in first two days of violence only 37 people including a policeman were killed in Bayana tehsil’s villages and Sikandara.

Of these the Gujjars were sitting with 6 bodies at Sikandara and 12 bodies at Pilupura (Pilukhera)-Dumariya, he said adding only 45 others were injured.

The state government has possession of just 14 bodies awaiting verification by the relatives at the Sawai Man Singh hospital in Jaipur, Kataria said.