Jind, June 4
The Congress today announced Rs 1 lakh as compensation to the families of farmers killed in police firing in this district even as Congress leaders, including Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, HPCC chief, and Mr Hanumant Rao, AICC General Secretary, visited Rajpura Bhain and Gulkani villages whose inhabitants were killed in the firing which took place on May 29 and May 31.
A Congress team comprising Mr Hooda, Mr Rao, Mr Jai Parkash Barwala, Mr Sher Singh and Mr Dharam Vir, MLAs, Mr Virender Singh, former HPCC chief, and others visited the families and offered them condolences.
“Mr Hooda had helped us in Rohtak where the villagers who had been hit by bullets were taken for treatment”, stated a villager at Rajpura Bhain. The villagers had assembled in a large group soon after the Congress leaders had left their village for going to Gulkani. The villagers said if Mr Hooda had not come to the hospital at Rohtak, the postmortem of the slain villagers would not have been done properly. Mr Jai Parkash was also present at the hospital, the villagers said.
They claimed that traditionally they had been voters of the INLD but the firing, which was unprovoked, according to them, had made them bitter.
Heart-rending scenes were witnessed when the Congress representatives visited the families of the slain villagers.
The Congress members sat with mourners and talked to them about Prakash. They also visited the houses of Dilbag Singh and Maha Singh. Maha Singh’s son, Dayanand, who was sitting with the other villagers, pointed towards an old villager and said: “My father was as old as him. Can you think of him as a rioter?”
Earlier, the HPCC executive met at the Jind Rest House and discussed the agitation for about three hours. Mr Bhajan Lal, Mr Virender Singh and Mr Shamsher Singh Surjewala attended the meeting.
