Yogesh’s USP: Raising issues with communal overtones
MEERUT: Yogesh Raj, the main accused in the Bulandshahr violence in which two persons, including inspector Subodh Kumar Singh, were killed on Monday, was like any other village boy until he joined the Bajrang Dal soon after Yogi Adityanath led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power last year.
Within months he was appointed the convener of Bulandshahr unit of Bajrang Dal. While initially, barely a dozen youths had joined the outfit with him; his followers multiplied rapidly as he inducted likeminded youths in Bajrang Dal and raised petty issues with communal overtones.
Residents of his native village, Nayabaans in Syana area of Bulandshahr, claimed that his followers are now in hundreds.The village has a population of over 3,000 and Lodh Rajputs with a population of approximate 2000 dominate it. Muslims have population of approximate 500 people and they also have a mosque and small madarsa in the village.
Yogesh is also a Lodh Rajput and his grandfather Rambal Singh was the village pradhan for many years in the 70s.
His father Surajbhan is a marginal farmer. Yogesh has one younger and an elder brother and a sister.
His elder brother is in a private job while younger brother is pursuing studies. Dr Yogendra, who had unsuccessfully contested the election for village pradhan, claims that he is a nice boy who is always ready to extend support to the needy villagers.
Jeetu, husband of village pradhan Hitesh Devi, is also full of praise for him.
“He is a good person. I never heard anything wrong about him,” he said.
He shot to limelight during Holi last year when a group of Muslims allegedly objected to a procession.
“Yogesh not only protested the move but also ensured that loudspeaker on village mosque are also discontinued,” said Dr Yogendra.
Muslims in the village, however, claim that controversy on Holi was created unnecessarily.
“We had requested the administration to depute force at the time of Holi procession so that no one could raise objectionable slogans and throw colours on Muslims to vitiate the atmosphere,” said Aas Mohammad. “We never demanded to stop procession. On our request, the RAF was deputed in the village,” he said.
Yogesh and his supporters had also allegedly demolished some pillars erected in the mosque.
He was also behind a sedition complaint against one Jalif Qureshi who had to spend a year in jail allegedly for forwarding some jokes against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Qureshi was granted bail from the high court after a year in jail,” said Aas Mohammad. Villagers also blame him for pressuring the local police in implicating villagers in fake cases of slaughtering and animal trading.
In fact, some villagers claimed that he
also used to include names of innocent persons in such complaints and later extort money from them to get their names removed.In the latest slaughtering case too, he is said to have included bogus names of villagers and a minor in the FIR. Some villagers claimed inspector Subodh Kumar Singh was not happy with his activities and seldom gave weightage to his complaints.
This had often infuriated Yogesh who had also sought his transfer by writing a letter to local MP Bhola Singh. The same letter is now being circulated in social media to malign the image of martyred inspector.