At ex-Bihar CM Jagannath Mishra's funeral, not a single gun fires during State honours; Nitish Kumar orders probe

While former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra’s mortal remains were being cremated with full State honours on Wednesday, guns toted by 22 police personnel failed to fire a single shot. The event was attended by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, and others. A video of the incident, which occurred during the ceremony in honour of Mishra in his ancestral village in the state’s Supaul district, went viral soon after. In the video, a senior official can be seen hastily testing guns of a couple of police personnel, trying to test whether the weapons had any life left by pulling the trigger, however, no solution was arrived at. “This is a serious lapse. It was imperative to ensure that the guns were functional and the cartridges used therein were usable. We have sought an explanation from the district police of Supaul in this regard,” a senior official said on the condition of anonymity. Reportedly, Nitish has ordered a probe into the incident.

(Video credit: News18 Bihar) RJD MLA from Pipra, Yaduwansh Kumar Yadav, who was also present at the funeral, said that the incident was an insult to the former Bihar chief minister. The 82-year-old Mishra passed away on 19 August following a prolonged illness. He started his career as a professor and went on to become Chief Minister of Bihar three times from the Congress party. A teacher-turned-politician, Mishra was also a former Union minister. He was formerly a member of the Congress, and he later left the party to join the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and later the Janata Dal (United). Before Lalu Prasad Yadav emerged, he was a popular leader among the minorities. He was credited for consolidating Muslims in favour of the Congress and, for this reason, was even called as “Maulana Jagannath.”. He had reached out to the community by declaring Urdu as the second language of Bihar. Mishra is remembered for his initiatives in the field of education like setting up number of Sanskrit schools, madrasas and various educational institutions, as noted in an article in Hindustan Times. It was under his leadership that the Sanskrit Shiksha Board, Bihar Intermediate Council and academies of various languages in the state were established. With inputs from agencies