Aklera MLA Kanwar Lal Meena assault on activists in court soon, says DGP Manoj Bhatt

JAIPUR: On January 16 last year, MLA Kanwar Lal Meena of Aklera in Jhalawar district was caught on camera unleashing a rain of lathis on social activists who were on the ‘Jawabdehi Yatra’ across the state’s 33 districts. As the yatris halted at Jhalawar for a street play, the MLA arrived and was caught on camera wielding a lathi and beating up Shankar Singh, founder-member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan, renowned puppeteer and actor among activists.Asked about this incident, state director general of police Manoj Bhatt told TOI, “We will put up the case in court soon.”
A year after the assault, the MLA walks free as Shankar Singh is under treatment for recurring pain. “I used my arm to shield my head, and now an MRI has revealed incurable damage to two nerves. I will just have to get used to the pain in the shoulder now. I feel very little energy in the left arm. What is astounding is that people in power can get away with anything at all. This is not the first time that MLA Meena has used the lathi on innocent people. Representatives of different organizations have met the Rajasthan home minister, the state president of the BJP, leaders in the party and government, but the MLA has escaped punishment. He shows no remorse at all,” Singh told TOI.
Radhika Ganesh, a social activist with a particular focus on arts and culture who received some blows a year ago, recalls that the scars took a long while to heal.
It is pertinent to mention here that the MLA has several other cases in his name. Crimes he is charged for range from criminal intimidation and cheating to robbery, forgery and insult to a places of worship.
The Jawabdehi Yatra had visited all districts in the state as part of a campaign to seek an ‘accountability law’ that would hold elected representatives and government servants to account. This would serve as ‘part 2’ of the Right to Information Act, activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, who are part of this campaign, explain. The activists already have a draft of the law ready, which stipulates penalty for officials found to have delayed or denied services to ordinary citizens.
As part of the campaign for this law, activists also held a 22-day dharna in Jaipur in June 2016, dwelling on a host of issues – health, education, the denial of compensation to patients of silicosis, denial of pensions and rations, the difficulties posed by the introduction of the point-of-sale machines at ration shops, denial of rights under the Forest Protection Act, 2006, and the special problems of nomadic communities and tribes earlier classified by the colonial government as “criminal”.
MLA Kanwar Lal Meena could not be contacted for this article. Despite TV news reports of a year ago clearly showing him raining lathi on Singh and other activists, he has maintained that he only arrived at the spot after violence broke out and that he was acting to restore peace.