New Delhi: “Mere bhaiya ko maar diya (My brother was killed),” she cried in anguish as bystanders and police guards grabbed her arms before she could set herself ablaze.
The woman, a resident of Baghpat, on Tuesday (August 8) tried to self-immolate outside the Uttar Pradesh assembly building, alleging police inaction in the case of her brother’s death under suspicious circumstances.
“No action has been taken. It’s been four months,” the woman was heard saying in a video of the incident. According to reports, the woman’s brother, a police constable, was found dead in a canal days after he went missing from home. She accused her brother’s in-laws of murdering him.
While an official statement from the police is still awaited, according to written data shared by chief minister Adityanath himself, ever since he came to power in March 2017 and till December 31, 2022, 35 persons attempted self-immolation outside the UP assembly, Lok Bhawan (secretariat) or the state BJP headquarters. The three buildings are close to each other on the Vidhan Sabha Marg in the heart of Lucknow, where aggrieved people and groups have traditionally come to register their protest.
The security arrangements on the VVIP stretch have been exposed several times in the past few years as individuals as well as families have turned up there to attempt self-immolation.
In the ongoing UP assembly monsoon session, Adityanath in a written reply on August 7 said that while 35 persons have attempted self-immolation since 2017, four have died. This includes two women.
Adityanath’s reply was in response to a question by Samajwadi Party MLA Tufani Saroj, who wanted to know if the government would take action against people who allegedly instigated the aggrieved persons to set themselves on fire.
Adityanath, who holds the home department portfolio which is concerned with law and order, said there was no question of taking further action as police had already filed FIRs under the abetment to suicide section in the cases and submitted chargesheets in courts. A total of nine persons were arrested in four separate cases.
The four persons who died in self-immolation incidents outside the UP assembly or the BJP state headquarters were Safiya of Amethi, Anjali Tiwari of Maharajganj, Balram Tiwari of Lucknow and Surendra Chakraborty of Lucknow.
Given that the data shared by Adityanath was till December 2022, the figure is expected to be higher as of today. The spate of self-immolation attempts became a cause of concern for Adityanath’s image, and to prevent such incidents security outside the state assembly was beefed up. Going a step further, the government also built watch towers and equipped the police on duty with blankets, sand buckets and fire extinguishers.
In June, a farmer from Unnao along with his family attempted self-immolation outside the state assembly, alleging that the police failed to take action against men accused by him in a complaint of attempting to sexually assault his two daughters.
Safiya, aged 50, died of burn injuries in July 2020 after she along with her daughter set themselves on fire outside the UP secretariat. Police said Safiya had a dispute with her neighbour over a drain. Police had then arrested an AIMIM member and Congress leader Anoop Patel on charges of allegedly instigating the two to self-immolate before the UP assembly.
In October 2020, Anjali Tiwari, in her 30s, died after she set herself on fire alleging harassment by her in-laws.
The same month, Surendra Chakraborty died of burn injuries after he set himself on fire. The man allegedly committed the act to thwart his landlord ‘s attempts to evict him. A journalist who filmed the incident was made a co-accused in the abetment to suicide case on charges of inducing the man to self-immolate and apply pressure on the landlord.
In 2021, the Allahabad high court, while rejecting the journalist’s bail petition, said that a journalist is not expected to dramatise a sensational and horrifying incident and make news by putting his actor in pitiable
condition in danger of death.
Last year, Balram Tiwari, aged 50, died after he self-immolated outside the BJP office in Lucknow, accusing his landlord of harassment