'He was an onlooker,not a protester'

Friend of man killed in police firing says he was just a bystander, claims Tabrez could have been saved if cops had allowed help to reach him

Friend of man killed in police firing says he was just a bystander, claims Tabrez could have been saved if cops had allowed help to reach him

Tabrez Sayekar, the 36-year-old man killed in the police firing during Monday's agitation against the proposed nuclear power plant in Jaitapur, was merely an onlooker and not a protester, according to a friend of his who was participating in the stir.



Mushtaq Mirkar, Sayekar's friend, added that the police did not allow Sayekar's family near him after he fell down injured and instead placed him in a police van. He said if Sayekar had been moved to the hospital right away, he might have been alive today.


Fired up: An angry mob went on the rampage outside the Civil Hospital
in Ratnagiri. Pic/Jignesh Mistry

Mirkar received a bullet in the head in the police firing but his brothers managed to pick him up and take him to safety.Speaking from his ICU bed in the Ratnagiri district civil hospital, Mirkar gave MiD DAY a first-hand account of the entire sequence of events on Monday afternoon at Sakhri-Nate village near Jaitapur.

How it began
According to Mirkar, around 10 am on Monday, some 800 locals from several villages in and around Jaitapur arrived at the nuclear plant site to protest and stop the fencing work underway there. He said about 500 policemen soon reached the spot and began beating villagers, including women. This led to public anger and some people intensified their protest and took it on to the roads.

Four police vans tried to control the mob, but did not succeed. At this juncture, Mirkar said the police started firing from their vans. He said seven people were injured, including three schoolchildren returning home after giving their exams.

Onlookers gather
Mirkar said when women were being beaten up by the police in the afternoon, people started gathering out in the open and Sayekar was one of the onlookers; around 3.30 pm, a bullet fired by the police hit him in the stomach and he fell down.

"I saw him collapsing and in pain. He was shouting for help. When I tried to help him, a bullet hit my head. My two brothers Shahadat and Munawar picked me up, but could not pull Sayekar out from there," Mirkar said.
After the firing, the sub-divisional officer, Ajit Pawar, appealed to the mob to return home. Mirkar said Pawar announced that only two relatives of Sayekar should come forward.

"Sayekar's wife Shireen and uncle Rajjak Solkar had barely taken a few steps towards him when the police abruptly put him in their van and took him away," Mirkar said. "Had his family or my brothers picked up Sayekar, we could have immediately taken him to hospital and saved his life."

Sayekar, who works as a khalashi (fish worker), got married to Shireen three years ago. They did not have any children and their uncle and aunt lived with them. MiD DAY tried speaking to Shireen, but she was not in a condition to say anything as she kept falling unconscious every few minutes. When Sayekar's body was taken to the district civil hospital, an angry mob protested outside the hospital, ransacked the post-mortem section and also beat up the doctors.

Agitated members of Sayekar's family initially refused to claim his body or let the doctors conduct the post-mortem. Late in the evening Amjad Borkar, a local leader from the fishermen community, managed to convince them to allow the post-mortem. A team of five doctors, including some private practitioners, in the presence of a photographer and videographer conducted the post-mortem.

A doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that as Sayekar was brought dead to the hospital, they could not find out how many injury marks were on his body without conducting a post-mortem.
"One bullet had hit him, but all other things will become clear only once the post-mortem report comes in," the doctor said.

Political visits
The Ratnagiri police have imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prohibits people from gathering and assembling at public places. A curfew-like situation prevailed in Jaitapur. In this scenario, Shiv Sena leaders Manohar Joshi, Gajanan Kirtikar and Dattaji Navle arrived in Ratnagiri and visited the injured victims.

While addressing mediapersons, Joshi reiterated his party's stand that it would not allow the nuclear project in Jaitapur. He also demanded that SDO Pawar should be suspended for his unwarranted firing orders. Joshi announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the family of the deceased.
Earlier, Home Minister R R Patil announced a judicial inquiry into the firing.

The Other Side
MiD DAY tried to verify Mushtaq Mirkar's claims by asking the police officers on duty at the time of the violence what they had seen, but they were reluctant to speak. One of them was Police Inspector Suvarna Patki. "I don't want to comment on the issue. Only senior officials will be able to comment on this, so you ask them," Patki said.