SP returns ‘Jungle Raj’ tag to BJP govt

LUCKNOW: The three back-to-back incidents of dacoities and murder in as many days in three different areas of the state capital have has given the opposition parties sufficient ammunition to flay the BJP government in the state on the law and order situation . the Samajwadi Party called the existing scenario all the more serious as the state police have been headless for the past 20 days.

A dacoity took place in Chinhat on Friday night, a woman technician of Central Drug Research Institute was killed at her home in Naka Hindola on Saturday and another dacoity, in which one person was killed, occurred in Kakori in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) said that law and order had totally gone out of the BJP government’s hands while the Congress said that the tall statements that BJP leaders had been making about criminals beating a hasty retreat from UP and shifting to other states and that the number of encounters had instilled fear among criminals had all proved hollow. SP has made panels of its leaders that will visit the crime spots. One delegation will go to probe the Chinhat dacoity case while the other will probe the murder of the 52-year-old woman technician of Central Drug Research Institute Veena Malhotra, who was murdered in her house in Naka Hindola. The first delegation will be led by MLC and former minister Ahmed Hasan. Former minister Ravidas Mehrotra will lead the other.

“For the past twenty days the state police are without a head,” said SP’s spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary at a press conference on Sunday.

The state has no DGP since the previous one Sulkhan Singh retired in December end. The state government announced the appointment of DG CISF OP Singh as UP DGP but he has not joined yet. Citing several recent crimes, Chaudhary said: “Now, the way incidents are happening one after the other, it is creating the impression as if the state has no government. Now there is total jungle raj (rule of the jungle) in the state.” BJP had used ‘Jungle Raj’, ‘Goonda Raj’ slogans to describe Samajwadi Party government in successive polls in the past several years .

ChaudharysaidthatevenGovernor Ram Naik had said that law and order needed improvement in the state.

The SP spokesperson said that apart from these serious crime incidents, 15 people died and 10 were blinded in a hooch tragedy in Barabanki. “Now, girls fear to venture out of their homes. In the past 10 months, more than two lakh cases of womwn’s harassment have taken place in the state,” he said.

Congress spokesperson Zeeshan Haider said that the BJP leaders had been making tall claims on acting against criminals, but the ground reality was in stark contrast. BJP MP Kaushal expressed concern over the Kakori dacoity and questioned the role of police .

He also raised doubts over the efficacy of UP100.