SP leaders, ministers and MLAs often make a mockery of the law, roughing up police officers and getting them transferred at will.
LUCKNOW: Last week, Lucknow residents witnessed a bizarre scene — a bedraggled police officer perched precariously on the bonnet of a jeep with red beacon light flashing, even as the vehicle’s five young passengers hurled abuse at him. The policeman had reportedly objected to the unauthorised beacon light and blocked the jeep’s path, but the youngsters pushed ahead and sped away.
They then drove straight to the district police chief’s residence. They introduced themselves as Ram Manohar Lohia’s grandsons, claiming they were adopted sons of Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Janeshwar Mishra aka ‘Chhotey Lohia’, and demanded the police officer’s arrest. a case was registered only when the media raised a stink.
In Uttar Pradesh, SP leaders, ministers and MLAs often make a mockery of the law, roughing up police officers and getting them transferred at will. But in an election year, there is not much that Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is willing to do. “It’s a conspiracy to tarnish the image of my party and my government,” he said, when reporters asked him about the incident.
Mulayam would prefer to turn a blind eye to matters like allegations of land-grabbing against Geeta Singh, SP MLA and wife of former DGP Yashpal Singh. Geeta reportedly took hold of prime land which is part of a cemetery in Gomtinagar. Rizwan Ahmed, a Congress general secretary who opposed her, was kidnapped.
There are examples galore. On Thursday, SP MLA Anil Verma and his cronies assaulted a co-operative department officer during a drive to recover revenue dues in Sitapur. The SP’s Lucknow unit chief Mujibur Rahman recently damaged the Municipal Commissioner’s office because the officer had got one of his hoardings removed. In Kanpur, Samajwadi Party youth wing activists beat up a SDO for refusing to grant an electricity connection in a building with dues outstanding. Minister of State-rank SP leader Mahesh Trivedi and his henchmen locked up power department engineers overnight when they raided his friend’s factory in Kanpur in a case of power theft.Last year, SP MLA Dilip Verma thrashed the station officer of the Ramgaon police station in Bahraich for arresting one of his supporters.
More recently, SP MLA Haji Mushtaq Solanki (now dead) stormed into the Colonelganj police station in Kanpur. A sub-inspector last posted at Tiwaripur police station of Gorakhpur has filed a writ saying he had been demoted and shunted out under pressure from local SP leaders. A district development officer (DDO) of Sitapur has written to a minister and senior officers complaining SP MLAs of the district pressurise him to dole out benefits under government schemes to ineligible people.
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