SP leader, son shot dead in UP

nBAREILLY: A Samajwadi Party (SP) functionary and his son were shot dead at Shamsoi in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district on Monday apparently over a dispute regarding laying of a road under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), police superintendent Yamuna Prasad said.

The double murder was caught on camera. A video purportedly showing two men aiming their rifles and shooting dead Chote Lal Diwakar and his son (NAME) after they objected to the attackers’ abusive language went viral on social media.

“Diwakar had some tussle with former pradhan over MGNREGS work. The father and the son died on the spot .... Their bodies have been sent for post mortem and an FIR [First Information Report] is being registered,” said Prasad, the Sambhal police superintendent.

He said a team was rushed to Shamsoi, which hit the headlines in 1973 when 11 murders were reported in a day from the village. “Three teams have been formed [and] some people [have been] detained and the probe is on.” SP’S Sambhal president, Firoz Khan, said Diwakar, was the party’s candidate for the 2017 assembly elections but he could not contest since his seat went to a coalition party.

Handing over probe of cases to CBI from state police based on tweets would have far-reaching consequences for the federal structure of the country, the bench said. “To accept the tweets by the petitioner…as a justification to displace a lawfully constituted investigation agency of its jurisdiction and duty to investigate would have far-reaching consequences for the federal structure. We are disinclined to do so,”it said.

It’s a sweltering afternoon. The public life here in south Delhi’s Pamposh Enclave is a tad less dead than it has been over the previous month. More cars and bikes, and even pull carts, are plying on the road. There is a clear sense of the easing of the prolonged lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Even the pavement is waking up, like an Arctic animal from its winter hibernation. The footpath tea stall that was reduced to a pile of dismantled objects wrapped up in tarpaulin during these long weeks of lockdown is suddenly seeming partly alive. Indeed, the masked woman in salwar kurta sitting on a wooden chowki beside the pile—where the stall used the city you should see to be—is Mayawati herself, the gentle-mannered friendly woman who has been running the chai shop for 20 years.

“I was coming here every other day for a short while even during the lockdown,” says the lady. Not to secretly run her chai shop—no! But to check after Sheru, the black-and-white stray dog who lives on this stretch of pavement, and has been her friend for long. “I would make sure that he was fine... and I would give him rotis and milk.”

A number of people in the vicinity look after the dog, the lady confirms. It is however still extraordinary that just for Sheru’s sake, Mayawati would walk all the way from home in Dakshinpuri—since the public transport had shut down for the time. She would cover the

THE DISPUTE WAS OVER LAYING OF A ROAD UNDER MGNREGS SCHEME, SAID POLICE