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UP voters want unbiased cops, easy access to police stations

The BSP candidate from Bilhor, Kamlesh Chandar Diwakar, explained that the police’s attitude towards castes changes in the state depending on which party is ruling in Lucknow

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Security personnel stand guard outside a strongroom where EVMs have been stored after the third phase of polling for the UP elections, in Lucknow on Monday
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Last month, when BJP president Amit Shah promised to ensure that complaints at police stations would be lodged without any bias if his party returns to power, he must have had his ear to the ground. While travelling across the hinterland of the state in the midst of elections, almost everyone in villages and towns vouched that they would support those candidates who  ensure easy access to police stations and an unbiased approach of policemen.

The BJP, in its manifesto, has also promised to fill up a staggering 1.5 lakh vacancies in the police department. “FIRs would be lodged within 24 hours of a person filing a complaint, without any bias,” the manifesto reads.  

The BSP candidate from Bilhor, Kamlesh Chandar Diwakar, explained that the police’s attitude towards castes changes in the state depending on which party is ruling in Lucknow.

“When the BSP is in power, the police take Dalits quite seriously and act swiftly on their complaints,” Diwakar said. “It is the opposite when the SP is in power, when Yadavs rule the roost at police stations,” he added.

Ziaduin Ansari, the chairman of Nagar Palika in Deoband city, agreed that the attitude of policemen in the state has been castiest and in support of the party in power in Lucknow. Even though he has switched to the BSP from the SP recently, he said that under BSP supremo Mayawati, the police use the Prevention of Cruelty against Scheduled Caste Act liberally and lethally. He said that Dalits, too, use this Act sometimes to settle personal scores in villages and towns. A common refrain is that it is only Muslims and Yadavs who are entertained at police stations during SP rule, while the same holds true for Dalits during BSP rule. Upper-caste Thakurs and Brahmins are treated well at police stations only under a BJP government.

Statistics show that the number of cases of Dalit women being raped had dropped from 375 in 2011 to 285 in 2012 during the BSP’s rule. “Under Mayawati, the police had strict instructions to file a case whenever a Dalit woman came to lodge a complaint,” said Badri Narayan, a professor at the GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. But with the SP returning to  power in 2012, the police went back  to ignoring complaints made by Dalits, says Ram Kumar, a Dalit activist. With 20 per cent of India’s Dalit population living in the state, UP also accounts for 17 per cent of the crimes against them.

Muslims have their own grievances regarding the police. Rejecting that they get favourable treatment from policemen when the SP is in power, Shahabuding Gauri, the chairman of Nagar Palika in Tanda, said that while other castes do get different treatment with a change of regime, the police never show any liberalism towards his community.

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