Law and order in UP has 'collapsed': Chandrashekhar Azad

Aligarh: Chandrashekhar Azad, MP and chief of the Azad Samaj Party on Monday said the law and order in Uttar Pradesh has “collapsed” in the BJP rule.

Azad, who arrived here to meet the family members of mob-lynching victim Fareed alias Aurangzeb and the bereaved family members who lost their loved ones in the Hathras stampede, said this while talking to reporters.

“The mob lynching of the Muslim youth in the heart of the old city a fortnight ago, followed by the stampede in neighbouring Hathras is a clear pointer that the police force in Uttar Pradesh has lost the moral right to serve the common people because in both cases innocents are being framed by the police, while in both cases the guilty are moving scot-free," he alleged.

Referring to the mob-lynching incident in Aligarh on June 18, Azad claimed family members of the deceased told him the victim had 22 broken bones and the entire sequence was captured in the CCTV in which the victim was beaten to death by steel and iron rods.

Azad said it is a "travesty of justice" that more than half a dozen people named in the FIR are moving freely even now.

The deceased, along with half a dozen family members, have been charged with dacoity, he said adding it shows how the justice delivery system operates in the state.

Azad said he would raise this matter in the Parliament and follow up with the Uttar Pradesh chief minister in Lucknow.

On being asked regarding the Hathras stampede, Azad said, “How can I demand the arrest of a person (self-styled godman Surajpal alias Narayan Sakar Hari alias Bhole Baba) when the police had not even deemed fit to name him as an accused in its FIR?" He alleged innocent persons were being arrested for this tragic incident while it was a result of "gross administrative failure".

He said no security arrangements were in place for controlling such a huge crowd at Hathras simply because the administration does not value the lives of the poorest and marginalised sections of society, which constituted the crowd present at the congregation.