Bulandshahr Violence Drills Big Hole Into Adityanath’s Claims on ‘Best’ Law & Order in UP

The killing of a police inspector and a 22-year-old student in Bulandshahr on Monday by a right-wing mob has raised serious questions over the deteriorating law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, currently being ruled by the BJP-led Adityanath regime. The mob violence over alleged cow slaughter, leading to burning of vehicles and widespread violence, has ruptured the tall claims made by Adityanath that the current “law and order situation is the best the state has seen in the past 15 years.”

Recently, Adityanath, in an interview to a national news channel, had claimed that there had not been a single incident of lynching in the state in his tenure. In 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq, who hailed from Dadri, Greater Noida, was lynched to death by a mob for allegedly consuming beef. There was country-wide outrage after the incident, which took place in 2015 when Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister. However, it was a BJP minister who had made insensitive comments on the heinous killing of Akhlaq.

Incidentally, the slain policeman, Subodh Kumar Singh, was the investigation officer (IO) in the Akhlaq lynching case (till November 2015). 

Singh’s sister’s statement to the media on Tuesday took a different turn after she alleged a “conspiracy”, linking the killing with the Akhlaq case. “My brother was investigating the Akhlaq case, and that is why he was killed. It’s a conspiracy by the police. He should be declared a martyr…The CM only keeps saying cow-cow- cow.”

However, Singh’s college-going son, Abhishek, raised concern over the growing communal divide in the state.

He told the media that his deceased father wanted him to become “a good citizen who doesn't incite violence in society in the name of religion”. “Today, my father lost his life in this Hindu-Muslim dispute, tomorrow whose father will lose his life?”

As of now, four people have been arrested in the case including the main accused in the murder Yogesh Raj, a local Bajrang Dal Leader. Incidentally, Yogesh had also filed a complaint in the cow slaughter case. The accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 147, 148, 149 (related to rioting), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 341 (wrongful restraint), 302 (murder), 307 (murder attempt), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house), among others.

Read more: BJP Man Among 3 Right-Wing Activists Named in FIR for Bulandshahr Violence