New Delhi: In the backdrop of the steady escalation of a complaint lodged by a man in Meerut claiming that 125 Hindu families have had to migrate from the city’s Prahlad Nagar upon allegedly facing harassment by members of another community, the additional director general of Meerut police has denied that the problem pertained to religious divide and said it instead arose from local issues.
One Bhavesh Mehta, who PTI identifies as a social worker, had lodged a complaint on the NaMo app, saying harassment of Hindu women by members of the other community was to blame for the mass exodus in which Hindu families were allegedly selling their houses and moving out, out of fear.
He also alleged that Hindu women were being “beaten up” for objecting to the harassment.
Faced with the potential of the complaint ballooning into a communal conflict, ADG Prashant Kumar said in a press conference late on Thursday that the migrations were not due to fear. “There are traffic, pollution and eve-teasing related problems in the area. District officials have conducted an inspection. A police picket has been established and CCTV cameras are being installed in the area,” he added.
@Uppolice @CMOfficeUP@dgpup@PrashantK_IPS90 #UPPolice#UPPinews
27-06-19 को पैदल गश्तअभियान के तहत ADG, आयुक्त, IG, DM, SSP एवं अन्य राजपत्रित अधिकारियों द्वारा जनपद मेरठ शहर के संवेदनशील स्थानों का सामूहिक भ्रमण किया गया तथा आम जनता से वार्ता कर समस्या का निराकरण कराया गया pic.twitter.com/30vDPXG1ZK— ADG ZONE MEERUT (@adgzonemeerut) June 27, 2019
Meanwhile, reports have said that Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has already ordered a probe in the matter and a committee comprising the city magistrate and Kotwali circle officer has been formed to look into it.
As chief minister, it is Adityanath’s wont to respond to complaints with just delegation, yet this will not be the first time that he will have sprung to action based on a migration complaint made with an ostensible communal angle in mind.
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Late in 2017, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister had raked up the already discredited line peddled by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Hukum Singh who in 2016 had claimed that 346 Hindu families had left Muslim majority Kairana town of Shamli in fear.
Singh’s list of 346 families, an Indian Express report had revealed, had names of people long dead, or who had shifted decades before the alleged exodus and people who had left in search of jobs. Uttar Pradesh police and Shamli district administration also saw similar results while investigating Singh’s list.
Yet that had not stopped Adityanath from stressing that having established the rule of law, ‘they’ had decided that ‘incidents like the one at Kairana’ will not happen again. The issue had also made its way to the BJP’s 2017 Uttar Pradesh election manifesto.
(With PTI inputs)