During the second day of the ongoing 48-hour Pangin bandh in Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday police arrested around 25 agitators for stone pelting, vandalism, use of kerosene bomb and assaulting police personnel.
As per sources, the Superintendent of Police (SP) Siang district, the Officer-in-Charge of Pangin Police Station and security personnel sustained injuries due to stone pelting while a lady constable was allegedly assaulted physically by the agitators. The bandh callers also reportedly vandalized two police vehicles.
The Deputy Commissioner of Siang, Rahul Singh, informed that as per the statement of the arrested agitators, mostly women, they were forced by some local leaders to participate in imposing the bandh.
Singh informed that the local leaders had threatened to impose fine on those who would not participate in the bandh and also threatened of cut panchayat funds to the non-participating villages.
Alleging that youths from the Adi Students’ Union were involved in the agitation, the Siang Deputy Commissioner said that they are now concentrating on identifying the ‘local leaders’ who had forced the villagers to take part in imposing the bandh.
The 48-hour Pangin bandh, which started on March 14, will end on Friday.
The bandh is being participated by people of more than 20 villages in and around Pangin demanding that the State government refrain from altering the November 24, 2014 notification on Siang district headquarters issue.
Pangin town is functioning as the temporary headquarters of Siang district. The new site for the district headquarters is presumed to be near Boleng town in the district.