BJP's General Secretary Arun Singh has informed that party chief J.P. Nadda has constituted a six-member fact finding committee who will visit the site of the crime and submit a detailed report back to the BJP President within a week.
The members are Jaswant Singh Bhabhor, Sameer Uraion, Bharti Pawar, Gomti Sai, Jon Barla and Neelkanth Munda. The first five are members of Parliament from Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal respectively while the sixth member is a former minister of Jharkhand, a state that is now ruled by the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance. This move is expected to create pressure on the new government.
On Sunday, a meeting was convened by Patthalgari supporters at Burugulikela village. James Bhud, Deputy Pramukh of Gulikela Panchayat opposed the Patthalgari supporters. He was allegedly abducted along with six people on Sunday. When they did not return on Monday the family members lodged a complaint with the police, suspecting the worst. On Tuesday, word spread that they had been killed.
Police launched a search operation on Tuesday but have failed to recover a single body so far.
Senior police officials are camping in the area and search operation is still on.
Patthalgari is a tribal custom in which a stone is fixed at certain place to demarcate the boundary. The Patthalgari was used to protest the amendment in two land Acts, brought by the BJP government in 2016. The stone was used as a mark of protest to write slogans against the government's policies. Hundreds of people were booked for supporting Patthalgari against the government. Even sedition charges were slapped and many arrested.
( With inputs from IANS )