Police to make BJP youth wing pay for damages
LUCKNOW: In consonance with a Supreme Court ruling, the city police have decided to implement the rule of making political outfits pay for damaging public property.
For starters, the police will get the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) youth wing to cough up the cost of damage caused to public property during their Monday’s protest wherein they fought a pitched battle with the men in uniform in front of the Vidhan Bhawan.
“We will recover the cost of damage caused by the BJP youth wing protestors, in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling over the issue,” said Praveen Kumar, senior superintendent of police (SSP).
Stating that the protestors had damaged many police and administrative vehicles during their agitation, he said a team headed by the additional district magistrate (finance) would evaluate the damage caused during the BJP youth wing protest and a recovery notice would be sent to the organiser accordingly. An FIR under the Public Property Damage Act and other criminal offences has already been registered.
He said the apex court ruling allowed recovery from the organiser — either an individual or an organisation (political or non-political) — in case of any damage to the public property.
The SSP indicated a similar recovery process would be initiated from now on in future cases too as the agitations had become a nightmare for the common man due to jams, diversions and other problems.
“Public property becomes the target of protestors. Such instances are increasing by the day, causing great loss to public institutions. Public transport buses, police and administrative office vehicles are stoned or set afire, causing great inconvenience to the public,” said the SSP.
He remarked that the politi- cal outfits quite often opted to damage public property in order to hog media attention.
The SSP also said, “We are also increasing the number of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras around the Vidhan Bhawan and dharna sthal where most of the protests take place.” He said the CCTVs would help identify the people involved in damaging property and subsequently the recovery process would be initiated against them.
The Supreme Court had given its ruling in 2009 but it was not implemented. In February 2013, the court again issued notices to the centre and all the states on a PIL seeking implementation of this judgment, directing the authorities to recover the cost of public and private property damaged by the protestors.