Lucknow: The ‘Great CM’ Yogi Adityanath has promised to make each protestor cry. Possibly, guided by this impulse and keen to make a shining example of the transgressors, a Congress worker, who gave an innocuous scooter ride to party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, was on Sunday issued a challan of Rs 6,100. His crime: both he and Priyanka were not wearing helmets.
More than the penalty, it was the swiftness with which the fine was imposed that drew public comment.
The Congress member has been identified as former MLA from Jahazpur, Rajasthan Dheeraj Gurjar. Priyanka Gandhi and Dheeraj Gurjar were not wearing helmets during the ride when the Congress leader was trying to give the UP cops a slip.
The UP Police personnel had on Saturday stopped Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's vehicle in Lucknow when she was en route to meeting the family members of a former IPS officer SR Darapuri who is in jail in connection with the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in the city.
The action against Priyanka and her aide came even as social media was swamped with a number of videos and pictures shared in a series of tweets and Facebook posts by activists purportedly show how Muslims being targeted by the Uttar Pradesh Police during the protests.
In all fairness, the videos have not been verified yet, but the police too has not commented on these claims.
In one of the tweets, human rights activist Kavita Krishnan has accused the UP Police, the Rapid Action Force and the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary of acting as "rioters" in uniform.
She posted videos that shows ransacked homes of several Muslims and charged that the UP Police had "targeted and trashed their homes".
The Congress leader had further alleged on Saturday that she had been manhandled and "grabbed by the throat" by policewomen as they tried to stop her when she was visiting the home of the retired police officer.
The charge has been denied by the Lucknow SSP and UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya hit out at the ‘theatrics’ on Sunday. Tweeting in Hindi, Maurya dubbed the Congress a "danga karao party."
