Why not legal action against attackers: HC

The High Court today issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain in two weeks as to why they should not be directed to take legal action against the persons responsible for looting, firing bullets on Santal people and torching their houses in the name of eviction in Gaibandha’s Gobindaganj on November 6.

The HC bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice Krishna Debnath issued the rule following a writ petition filed by two Santal women.

Secretaries to the ministries of home, law, industries and land, inspector general of police, deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of Gaibandha, upazila nirbahi officer of Gobindaganj, officer-in-charge of Gobindaganj Police Station, managing director of Rangpur Sugar Mill, lawmaker of Gaibandha-4, and chairman of Sapmara Union Parishad have been made respondents to in the rule, petitioners’ lawyer Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua told The Daily Star.

Santal victims-- Olivia Hembrom, wife of Dijen Tudu, and Rumila Kisku, wife of Ganesh Murmu, filed the writ petition with the HC yesterday seeking its directive on the government to form a judicial enquiry commission to probe the November 6 incident.

Earlier, both the Santal women sent a legal notice seeking an explanation from the administration under what authority they had carried out the eviction.