New Delhi : The Mathura violence during the course of the last week that left 24 people, including two senior police officers, is now ripe for political slugfest. Union home minister Rajnath Singh has said that the central government is ready for a CBI probe into the matter but then it is for the Uttar Pradesh Government to make a request for it in writing.
Observing that there is something hidden about the Mathura violence, Singh said: “It is quite strange that such an incident has taken place. I don’t know what is happening in Uttar Pradesh and if the state government wants the entire truth to come to the fore then they should request the Centre in writing and ask for a CBI probe.” He was addressing a public rally at Amroha.
Through this suggestion, the union home minister has launched an indirect attack on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, but his party president Amit Shah has been pretty upfront in blaming the Samajwadi Party for the incident.
At a rally in Kanpur yesterday Shah had asked Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to seek the resignation of his younger brother and state PWD Minister Shivpal Yadav, holding him responsible for the Mathura violence. “If even a little bit of self-respect is left in Netaji (Mulayam), he should get minister Shivpal Yadav to resign immediately. An SP is killed in broad daylight. An SHO is killed. More than 200 people open fire on police. But a minister (Shivpal) sitting in the secretariat patronises them and does not allow police to retaliate,” Shah had charged.”
It has emerged that some 3,000 followers of the sect, Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah, which clashed with the police in Mathura during an eviction drive on Thursday, virtually ran a republic in the 260-acre park in the Jawahar Bagh area since late 2014, with the site almost entirely closed to the outside world.
Meanwhile, the Congress has questioned the double standards of the Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah for his demand for the sack of Uttar Pradesh PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav in connection with the Mathura violence. Demanding that there should be a level playing field for resignations as well, party spokesman Tom Vadakkan said that before seeking Shivpal Yadav’s resignation the BJP president must explain as to why no action was initiated against Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar for inaction during the Jat agitation.
Meanwhile, a senior police officer DC Mishra was quoted by wire agency AFP as saying that “children as young as eight years old were being given training in arms” by the members of the cult was also running a parallel judicial system and had its own constitution, jails and several “battalions” of soldiers. All the children who were rounded up during the violence have been sent to various children’s homes in Mathura and Agra.
The children will be allowed to meet their parents before being handed over to their relatives, the superintendent of the children’s home said. If there is no one to take their custody, they’ll continue to live at the children’s home, reports NDTV.
