On Saturday, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav visited a 12-year-old boy who reported being assaulted by a group of youths. The incident occurred in Patna on September 17, during an event celebrating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, where the boy was filming mustard-oil lamps. Yadav’s meeting with the victim underscores ongoing concerns regarding youth safety and accountability in such public gatherings.
Yadav, the leader of the opposiiton, accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters of manhandling the child and alleged that police pressured him to change his statement, charges the BJP rejected as fabricated. In a video of his interaction with the boy, Yadav took details of how the incident happened and also listened to the boy’s allegation as how he was manhandled by some youths at the site of the incident and later was put off the railing. “The cops later also put pressure on the boy to give a statement that those who had manhandled him were his friends and together they work for the BJP. Police even intimidated the boy to give a statement that there was no assault or otherwise, he would have to spend a night in the police station. “The kind of oil consumed in lighting diyas would have enough for us to make puris for my entire village. I just made a video and was assaulted by the party men of BJP. The boy also claimed he was in standard five and academic activities in his village had been affected by recent flood. He lives in a locality in Patna. “The opposition leader should behave more maturely instead of trying to get some publicity out of certain fabricated videos. It would be better if Yadav visits flood-hit areas more, including his own constituency, where he has spent just a few hours during floods for a photo op and has done little for the flood-hit victims.
This is the situation in Bihar where a 12 year old boy is assaulted by BJP sponsored goons and even locked up in police station for just making a video of lamps lit by mustard oil to mark PM’s birthday,” Yadav said.
The BJP party men assaulted me and later the administration also came and took me off,” the boy told the opposition leader. BJP state spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said the video of the boy’s allegations was totally false and created with malicious intent to defame the BJP. The opposition leader is making all baseless allegations as he is unnerved with the popularity of our Prime Minister and the BJP,” Patel said.
