Angry youth hurls chappal at Nitish, held and let off

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was hit with a slipper, hurled at him by a youth protesting against a government advisory on lighting fires during a public interaction after which the offender was arrested.

Though the photo journalists could not record the incident, Kumar told reporters the slipper struck him on the right side of his chest.

He showed the imprint of the footwear on his white kurta. “The chappal was very dirty as can be seen from the imprint left on the kurta,” he joked after the incident at his ‘Janata Ke Durbar Mein Mukhyamantri’ programme.

He said the youth was angry over the state government’s advisory to people asking them not to light fire for cooking and puja after 9 in the morning till 6 in the evening in a bid to check incidents of blaze due to the heatwave sweeping the state.

“The youth yelled at me asking if I am not a Hindu.... stopping citizens observing puja during the day time and to vent his anger he threw his slipper at me,” Kumar said in the presence of DGP P K Thakur. The youth, a namesake of the Chief Minister, had come to attend the programme with some request. Kumar said he had asked the DGP to let off the offender.