Bulandshahr Mob Violence: In Open Letter, 83 Civil Servants Seek Adityanath’s Resignation
Image for representational use only; Image courtesy : The Live Mirror
Over 80 top retired civil servants have written an open letter to the public, expressing their dismay at “complete collapse of constitutional values” following the “instigated and engineered with malicious intent violence” in Bulandshahr that led to the killing of a Uttar Pradesh police officer and a civilian, and have called for the resignation of Chief Minister Adityanath.
The incident, says the letter, shows that in “India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, fundamental principles of governance, of constitutional ethics and of humane social conduct stand perverted. The Chief Minister of the state acts as a high priest of the agenda of bigotry and majoritarian supremacy – an agenda which now seems to take precedence over everything else.”
“Much as the Chief Minister may try to mislead by calling it an accident, this was murder with intent. It was murder most foul,” the former civil servants said on the killing of police officer Subodh Kumar Singh on December 3, by a Right-wing violent mob.
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The letter has been signed by retired civil servants, such as S.P. Ambrose, former Additional Secretary, Ministry of Shipping & Transport, , J.L. Bajaj, Former Chairman, Administrative Reforms and Decentralisation Commission, UP, Meeran C Borwankar, Former DGP, Bureau of Police Research and Development, Nitin Desai, Former Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Keshav Desiraju, Former Health Secretary, Najeeb Jung, Former Lieutenant Governor, Delhi, Shivshankar Menon, Former Foreign Secretary and Former National Security Adviser, among others.
Terming the incident as “a frightening indicator of the complete collapse of constitutional values”, the letter points out that this is not the first instance of a situation intentionally created to foment communal tension.
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“The history of U.P. is replete with such instances. This is not the first time that a policeman has been killed by a frenzied mob. This is also not the first time that the politics of cow protection has been used as a means of isolating and cornering the Muslim community and deepening the social divide,” adding that the “pace of erosion (of constitutional values) has been frightening and with each slip we seem to sink further into a lawless abyss.”
Commenting on the “stony silence” of the Prime Minister, “who is so voluble in his election campaigns and who never tires of telling us of how the Constitution of India is the only holy book he worships,”, the letter observed that “never before has hate been directed with such calculated intent against minority communities, hate which is nursed, aided and abetted by those in power.”.
You can also read : Was Bulandshahr Violence 'Premeditated'?
Calling upon the public in this “critical moment” to unite against the politics of hate and division and build public opinion, the veteran bureaucrats have demanded the resignation UP Chief Minister Adityanath for his failure to abide by the Constitution to which he swore allegiance.
The full letter can be read here
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