Patna HC pulls up SP

The Patna High Court has directed the state government to immediately transfer West Champaran SP Paras Nath, who is suspected to have falsely implicated a journalist in a murder case.

The journalist had filed reports on police inefficiency in West Champaran, leading to the HC’s intervention earlier. Vikas Bihari Sinha, a reporter based in Betiah, had also reported about one Dr Ranjan Deo Singh being threatened by a gangster from inside Betiah jail. The report also mentioned that the police turned down the doctor’s request for protection. When M.P. Gupta, a petitioner in another case, brought the news report to the court’s attention, the high court directed the West Champaran police to provide protection to the doctor and initiate action against the gangster. The court later ordered raids in all Bihar jails to seize phones. The West Champaran police then filed an FIR against the gangster, but also re-opened a case of unnatural death and named the journalist in it. A labourer working on the journalist’s building had fallen from a height and died in the hospital.