Page 40 - 31DEC2018E

UTTAR PRADESH

Police inspector’s martyrdom saved

UP from another Muzaffarnagar riot

It has been more than 10 days since violence broke out in the western UP district of
Bulandshahr, where two persons including a police inspector lost their lives at the hands of
rioters who were hell-bent on fomenting trouble, reports SHARAT PRADHAN

ome carcasses of cows were is anybody’s guess. casses, it is believed by many that some
found littered in an agri- It was clearly an old tactic – spill naturally dead cows were systemati-
cultural field of a village in some beef in a temple and throw some cally chopped by the mischief-mon-
western district of Bulandh- pork in a mosque and your objective gers who spilt these in the field. And
S shahar in Uttar Pradesh. of igniting a communal clash would what substantiated this theory was the
Interestingly, these were discovered be served. The trick is known to have post-mortem of these carcasses. It said
by none other than a Bajrang Dal been first used by the British to divide that the carcasses were more than 48
activist Yogesh Raj, who got his follow- and rule and later followed even in the hours old.
ers to cart, the remains of the bovine to sixties and seventies to foment trouble It was the alertness of Inspector
the middle of the nearby Bulandshahr between Hindus and Muslims. Subodh Kumar Singh who apparently
–Moradabad highway in a tractor-trol- In this case, too, no one tried to smelt the rat and got into action to nip
ley. With them projecting it as a case reason out that every dead cow is not the trouble in the bud. He got his cops
of “cow-slaughter”, much commotion the result of a cow slaughter. After all, to manually push the trolley away from
was already created in and around the the highway. But the move did not go
village on December 3. well with the culprits, who engaged the
Subodh Kumar Singh, the inspector It would be too naïve cops in a free-for-all that began with
of the Syana Police Station, rushed to to believe that there the pelting of stones that hurt Singh on Died for a cause Inspector Subodh
take control of the situation by getting his temple and left him bleeding pro- got into action to nip the trouble in
down to registering the FIR that Yogesh was no vicious design fusely. When his juniors tried to whisk the bud but was killed by miscreants
Raj was demanding. With the FIR done, to incite communal Singh away in the police jeep to some
Inspector Singh urged Raj to disperse hospital, they were intercepted by the
his bandwagon of supporters, who had frenzy on the lines mob, allegedly led by Yogesh Raj. The
converged there in large numbers rais- cops gave up without any resistance against him only after much hammer- famous Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. The
ing provocative slogans while demand- of the infamous and ran for their own lives while a ing by the media. riots, which left as many as 67 dead and
ing the arrest of the culprits. However, Muzaffarnagar riots bullet pierced into the inspector’s head Significantly, even the chief min- tens of thousands uprooted from their
far from pacifying the agitators, some- dropping him dead. ister’s focus remained more on “cow- homes , eventually helped to play up the
one from the rioters quietly zipped of 2013, which left That prompted the trouble-makers slaughter” than the inspector’s killing, politics of polarisation. If it was a simple
away from the tractor and abandoned 67 dead and made to disperse, even as one of them unity which he even went to the extent of incident of eve-teasing that snowballed
the trolley in the middle of the highway. too got shot. terming as “accident” He, however, “conspiracy” to foment communal into the bloody Muzaffarnagar riots, it
Their objective was quite evident thousands homeless A police inspector ’s broad-daylight attributes the alleged cow-slaughter to trouble. Meanwhile, even as Yogesh Raj was the story of an alleged cow-slaugh-
– to block the road. And sure enough, murder was not to be taken lying down “conspiracy”. Vishwa Hindu Parishad continues to hoodwink the police, the ter that gave rise to the violence in Bu-
there was an obvious design behind by the men in khakhi, who ensured that (VHP) spokesman Vinod Bansal went chief minister ordered punitive action landshahr , that is as communally vola-
the roadblock. The three-day ‘Ijtima’ cows die on their own too – especially an FIR was promptly lodged against about pointedly accusing Muslims, against several Bulandshahr policemen tile as its neighbouring Muzaffarnagar.
(a religious meet) being attended by since more often than not, most self- the Bajrang Dal activist. Sure enough, attending the ‘Ijtima’, as the “killer of the including the district police chief. If Eventually, in 2014, when the nation
several lakh Muslims was going to styled cow lovers do not bat an eyelid they knew and any time lag could pre- cows”. Another self-styled Hindutva insiders were to be believed, even as went to poll, BJP romped home with as
conclude the same afternoon and a before dumping their own cows no vent them from doing so as the fellow activist Ajay Gautam was heard these officials were being held respon- many as 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in
large number of buses carting the par- sooner than it stops giving them milk. was deeply entrenched with the ruling screaming on TV channels,” the cows sible for the breakdown of law and the country’s most populous and there-
ticipants from different corners of the According to reports, such cows are dispensation. No wonder, the UP police in Bulandshahr were slaughtered for order, they had to actually pay the price fore the politically most crucial state.
state were to return via the same high- often abandoned along highways or failed to track him down even though a feast at the ‘Ijtima’, where lakhs of for booking the Bajrang Dal activist. The next general elections too are not
way. How the blockade created with a around forests, where they meet their he kept issuing video posts, proclaiming Muslims had gathered. It would be too naïve to believe that very far away now.
trolley loaded with cow carcasses could end, often due to starvation. himself to be “innocent”. Finally, non- Ironically, the official machinery there was no vicious design to incite
have incited a bloody communal clash In case of the Bulandshahr car - bailable warrants have been issued remains in denial mode about any communal frenzy on the lines of the in- LETTERS@TEHELKA.COM

TEHELKA / 31 DECEMBER 2018 40 WWW.TEHELKA.COM TEHELKA / 31 DECEMBER 2018 41 WWW.TEHELKA.COM

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