With half a dozen of former colleagues of Mayawati were already behind bars on separate charges of corruption and a recent case against party’s State president Ram Achal Rajbhar for disproportionate assets, it is now the turn of leader of Opposition in the Assembly and senior BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya.
Mainpuri Police has filed a chargesheet against him in connection with hate speech case registered last year. Maurya’s daughter has also been charge-sheeted.
Sources said that cops of the Kotwali police station in Mainpuri who were probing the case registered against Swami Prasad Maurya and his daughter Sanghmitra Maurya finally went ahead and submitted a charge-sheet in the local court at Mainpuri earlier this week.
Now, if the court accepted the charge-sheet than both Maurya and his daughter had to appear before the court. On October 29 last year, Swami Prasad Maurya and his
daughter Sanghmitra Maurya were booked by Mainpuri police under Section 153A of Indian Penal Code (IPC) for trying to promote enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and by doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony. The action was taken by the local police on complaint of Khuman Singh Verma, district president of Samajwadi Party.
He alleged that All India General Secretary of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Swami Prasad Maurya along with his daughter Sanghmitra Maurya, held a ‘Workers Meet’ (Karyakarta Sammelan) in Small Christian College ground on October 28.
He claimed that while
addressing the party activists, both the above BSP leaders
used derogatory and objectionable remarks against
Samajwadi Party supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav as well
as chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The local SP leader
alleged that the party workers were agitated over the above
remarks of Swami Prasad Maurya and Sanghmitra Maurya
so a case should be registered against them and legal
proceedings should also be initiated in the matter. The local
police soon after receiving the above complaint registered a
case.
It may be mentioned that besides Mainpuri police who took
action against Maurya, a local court in Rae Bareli earlier
also issued a Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) against him
when he was even a minister in Mayawati’s government.
Maurya was declared `wanted’ in more than two decade old
case two year back. Reports said that in 1987 when
Swami Prasad Maurya was a member of lok Dal (B), he
took part in party’s demonstration at Purwa in Rai Bareli in
which some clash took place with the cops of the Fire
Department. In that incident, Swami Prasad was named in
the FIR and a case for making an attempt of life, assault,
abusing and creating hurdle for the government official to
carry on his duty was registered against him. Reports said
that the Rai Bareli police investigated the matter and in
1990, they got a NBW issued against Maurya’s name to
arrest him. To evade arrest, Maurya went to High Court to
get the case expunged but he reportedly get no relief.
However, the matter since then not pursued both by
Maurya and the police but after passing of more than two
decades, the Session Court in Rae Bareli took cognizance.