Posters of ‘CM attacker’ removed from city streets

Ranchi: A joint team of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) and Ranchi police on Thursday removed posters that were pasted all over the capital to welcome Bhairav Singh, who had attacked Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s convoy in January this year.
The posters were put up by various organisations to celebrate release of Bhairav Singh after obtaining bail from Jharkhan High Court on Wednesday.
Soon after the posters, which featured Singh holding a sarna flag in his hands appeared on the streets, tribal organisations lead by Central Sarna Committee arrived near Harmu Chowk and demanded the removal of the posters claiming those were hurting their religious sentiments.
The tribal groups said they cannot allow an accused who is on trial for attacking the chief minister of the state carrying a sarna flag as they do not support such action. “It is disrespect to our culture and practices as we worship sarna flag. If a criminal uses it for his political benefits we cannot allow such things as it hurts our religious sentiments,” said working president of Central Sarna Committee Anil Tigga.
Tigga termed it a political conspiracy against CM Hemant Soren and said: “Large-size posters have been put up on Harmu bypass which is used by the CM for his movement and that itself is highly suspicious. We cannot allow people, especially those accused of attacking our own chief minister to use our religion for their own benefits.”
The protest was withdrawn after the posters were removed.
Talking to TOI, RMC commissioner Mukesh Kumar said: “Our teams tracked down all such unauthorised posters and we are identifying the people who put those up without permission. We will penalise them for unauthorised use of our space and if required, FIRs will be registered against the guilty.”
The posters bore the name of Ram Bhakt and Anandnagar Chhath Puja Samiti as the proposers who were welcoming Singh for his release.
Kumar said apart from Singh’s poster, he has asked the market section officials of the RMC to conduct a weeklong mapping of all unauthorised posters across the city and to penalise all people found to be using civic body space illegally.
Officer-in-charge of Argora police station Vinod Kumar said, “We have seized all the posters which were put up on different locations in our area.”