A little over four months later, the badlands of Uttar Pradesh appear as they were; some would say they have turned worse since Adityanath, the mahant-turned-CM, took over.
ET Bureau
For a land of 22 crore people, at least 20 dozen castes and a 19% population of religious minorities, Uttar Pradesh’s law and order situation often makes or breaks its government. The state of lawlessness played its part in the Samajwadi Party’s (SP’s) crushing defeat in the assembly hustings earlier this year, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) marching to the Vidhan Sabha with a historic three-fourths majority. A little over four months later, the badlands of Uttar Pradesh appear as they were; some would say they have turned worse since Yogi Adityanath, the mahant-turned-chief minister, took over and promised to make the state crime-free. Data put out by his own minister paint a grim picture.
Early this week, UP cabinet minister Suresh Kumar Khanna furnished these stats in the assembly: “Between March 15 and May 9 (55 days), 729 murders, 803 rapes, 799 loots, 2,682 kidnappings and 60 robbery took place (in the state).” The average works out to 13.3 murders, 14.6 rapes, 14.5 loots, 48.8 kidnappings and 1.1 robbery a day. Khanna, the state’s parliamentary affairs minister, was replying to a query raised by SP’s Shailendra Yadav Lalai, who sought crime data and action taken in the specified period.
As per Khanna’s briefing, action has been taken in 67.2% of murder cases, 71.1% cases of rape, 52.2% of kidnappings, 67% of dacoities and 81.9% of loot cases. No comparative data was available for the SP regime, according to Khanna.
Khanna had also made headlines in the last week of May, hours after four women were allegedly gangraped and a man shot dead on the Jewar-Bulandshahr highway. While giving an assurance that the criminals would be caught, he also added: “Ours is a huge state, we never claimed we will ensure zero crime.”
Sharma may be right on both counts, but zero crime is one thing and multiple incidents per day quite another. The picture looks as bad as it was in the first 45 days of the Akhilesh Yadav government in 2012. Between March 1 and April 15, 699 cases of murder, 263 rape cases and 249 incidents of loot had taken place. The SP government, which had taken over on March 15, 2012, had released the figures in the assembly after a query by a BJP MLA.
That’s not quite an apple-to-apple comparison but is indicative that lawlessness is a way of life in UP. And if the numbers look bigger now, Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma says it is for a reason. “Even the smallest incident of crime is being noted and action taken — unlike in the earlier regime when first information reports (FIRs) were not registered for the most heinous crimes,” says Sharma. He adds that the government’s commitment to report crime is what has spiked the numbers.
“When we came to power, we gave an order that all crimes must be registered — even if it is a scuffle. Expectedly, the numbers have risen. At the same time, we are not saying that no crime is happening.”
The Opposition has been quick to make capital of the big numbers. “We were termed the goonda party. What is happening under Yogiji? Will he act?” former CM Akhilesh asked in mid-May. Ram Govind Chaudhary, leader of the Opposition, told ET Magazine: “Crime has increased by 30-35% under the BJP. More worrisome is the rise in sangathit aparadh (organised crime); men in groups are able to pull off a heist or commit mass murders in broad daylight.”
The Apta Murders June 26. Location: Apta, a village off Unchahar town in Raebareli district, some 100 km from Lucknow. Three persons are beaten to death and two others burnt alive after being allegedly attacked by villagers. All the deceased are Brahmins. Post-mortem reports show that limbs of at least two men were cut off before being burned alive. Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey of the SP called the incident a jansanghhar (mass murder). The village is still on the boil. Heavy police enforcement, including of the Rapid Action Force, has been deployed in the Yadav-dominated village and this writer needed police permission to enter.
The gruesome incident also resulted in a run-in b e tween the state’s Labour Minister Swamy Prasad Maurya (an OBC) and Law Minister Brajesh Pathak (a Brahmin). While Maurya reportedly said “agar koi aapko maarne aaye toh aap uski aarti toh nahi utarenge (if someone comes to kill you, you will not welcome him)”, Pathak condemned Maurya’s statement.
“No one will call the killing a good act, lekin bheed andhi hoti hai (but a crowd is blind). The case is under investigation and five men already have been arrested; I am sure there will be justice,” Maurya told ET Magazine. Pathak had something similar to say. “No culprit will be spared. Action will be taken against anyone who interferes with a fair trial.” Political analysts in the state wryly point out that such assurances are not much different from former CM Akhilesh’s “due compensation has been given” template.
Likening the state government to a new bride who just pretends to do more work to impress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)’s Lalji Verma insists that crimes have increased in the new dispensation. “What is their plan for controlling crime? Despite the chief minister making statements time and again, there appears to be no curb on criminals,” says Verma.
It is not just organised crime by “hardened criminals” that’s a problem. Members of Adityanath-founded Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV), a militant youth outfit, were alleged to be behind the killing of an aged Muslim man after a “love-jihad style” elopement in Bulandshahr on May 3. Even before the matter settled down, caste violence broke out in the region the following month. In his defence, Adityanath said anyone with a saffron scarf who commits an illegal act is not an HYV worker.
Ask the deputy CM about measures being taken to contain such elements, he says the CM does a daily sameeksha (review) of the situation. “The CM has given clear instructions: whosoever flouts the law, be it from any political party or any outfit, including the Hindu Yuva Vahini, must be dealt strictly by the police.”
Then, there is the curious case of an alleged explosive in the form of a white powder — pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN — being found on the Vidhan Sabha premises last week. It turned out to be a damp squib with labs in Agra and Lucknow failing to find traces of PETN. Questions are now being raised over the authenticity of the “explosive”, and who put it there and why? “Now they want to send it to Hyderabad (to a government lab for testing).
But who could have placed the substance inside, and how?” wonders Opposition leader Chaudhary. “The security of the CM and the governor has been increased following the discovery, but what about the safety of 22 crore people?” For his part, in end May Adityanath had warned about “conspiracies” being hatched to vitiate the state’s “peaceful atmosphere” just when efforts are being made to restore law and order.
If UP ever needed law and order to be restored, it was after Adityanath became CM. But clashes between Dalits and Thakurs in Saharanpur, Yadavs and Brahmins in Apta, killing of bullion traders in Mathura, gangrapes of four women of a family on the Jewar-Bulandshahr road are just a handful of incidents that have put the state to shame since then.
Perturbed over the sudden spurt in such incidents, the CM has set up a special monitoring cell in his office. Sections of the state populace are hopeful that recent caste clashes, like those in Raebareli, and communal violence in places like Sambhal and Gonda will ebb. The reason for their optimism: if the new government could launch a brutal crackdown on illegal abattoirs across the state, it isn’t unreasonable to expect a similar onslaught on murderers, rapists and looters. Or, is it?
ET Bureau
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