Whatever may have been the compulsions of the police, the killings should and could have been avoided with some judicious and deft handling of the situation by the law enforcing agencies and the local administration.

It is also with a degree of trepidation that we notice a trend in violent expression of grievances particularly against any erratic performance of public service providers. There must be some internal mechanism to sort these problems out before these erupt into a violent form.

While the public have the right to ventilate their grievances, the authorities should be sensitive to the need for correcting wrongs whenever pointed out, in good time. What happened in Kansat the other day only highlighted the authorities' lack of anticipation since this was the second incident related to the matter of overcharge by the REB and also the local samity's failure to provide the service as committed by them. We cannot understand why should the authorities have charged flat rate for services regardless of whether these were provided or not? We ask why the killing in Kansat on 4 January this year not addressed promptly and why if the demands of the public were genuine these were not redressed in good time to avoid the subsequent incident?

Not only do we demand that there is a thorough investigation into the killings, it is also important to find out why it occurred at all.

Let's not forget REB is a success story which needs to be only taken forward.