A day after his visit to riot-hit Muzaffarnagar areas, Director General of Police Deo Raj Nagar on Tuesday admitted that there were lapses on the part of the police. He claimed that it was unfortunate that there was lack of policing in some riot-hit areas.
“'The force should have exuded toughness and come out impartial in their actions while dealing with such incidents,” he said, while admitting that in some areas, there seems to be no presence of police even when they provided enough force as they already apprehended that any eventuality could happen in Muzaffarnagar.
The statement of Nagar showed his haplessness to tackle the situation when he claimed to be aware of all the situations and had also visited the district just a day before riots broke out. It also reminded the statement of Ambrish Chandra Sharma, former DGP in Akhilesh the Yadav’s Government, who admitted that what he could do when his own officers refused to listen to him after Faizabad riots last year.
Besides DGP Deo Raj Nagar’s statement, how the local police kept sitting hand-on-hand and let the rioters ruled the area also surfaced during a sting operation by a television channel. In the sting operation, most of the officers who were later taken to task showed admitting that how they had to sit idle following dictates of some politicians. Besides, the move of the Government also pointed towards growing influences of the politician which turned the situation worsened. In Muzaffarnagar, Senior Superintendent of Police Manzul Saini along with DM were shunted out just after they took action against the guilty in the case which is the main cause of worst-ever riots, just as they belongs to a particular community. The sting operation also pointed that how the accused rounded up by the police had been released on intervention of a senior leader.
Circumstantial evidence also pointed that how the local cops were working under influence of a high-profile leader of the ruling party. Out the total 49 causalities announced officially by the Government none of the victims died of police bullet, which clearly pointed that the cops had done nothing to control the rioters hence the Government was forced to call out the Army.