YOGI GOVERNMENT UNDER OPPOSITION fire

LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh came under opposition fire over the rape allegations against its MLA, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, with Congress workers protesting on the streets here demanding the arrest of the accused lawmaker while BSP chief Mayawati expressed apprehensions that the case might be put on the back burner after being handed over to the CBI.

In the state capital, Congress workers belonging to the party's women and youth wings even had a scuffle with police personnel deployed in strength to prevent them from marching to the chief minister's residence. Congress workers raised slogans against the state government and demanded the arrest of Sengar, against whom an FIR was registered on Thursday.

BSP chief Mayawati targeted the BJP claiming that by ordering a CBI probe, instead of arresting the MLA, the issue could be "put on the back burner like the Vyapam case of Madhya Pradesh".

In a statement, Mayawati also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah for observing a fast over the stalemate in Parliament, saying they should instead hold a "upvas (fast) of repentence" on the ghats of Varanasi against the "misdeeds" of their party MLA. NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday described the rape and killing of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua as "unimaginable brutality" that cannot go unpunished, and wondered how anybody can seek to protect the culprits. He also lashed out at the politics being played over the crime.

"How can anyone protect the culprits of such evil," he asked, adding that the violence against the child was a crime against humanity.

"It cannot go unpunished," he said on Twitter.

"What have we become if we allow politics to interfere with such unimaginable brutality perpetrated on an innocent child," he tweeted. The minor, who belonged to the nomadic Bakerwal Muslim community, had disappeared from a spot near her house close to Rasana village in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir on January 10. A week later, her body was found in the same area.

A Special Investigation Team formed to probe the incident has arrested eight people, including two Special Police Officers and a head constable, who was charged with destroying evidence.