With reports of police going overboard in its Anti-Romeo campaign and harassing innocent youths, Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi directed that the campaign should target only `ruffians’ and not boys and girls who were friends.
“The Anti-Romeo campaign should not target boys and girls who know each other. Young couples sitting in parks or going out together should not be harassed. The police should be judicious in arresting youths under Anti-Romeo campaign,” Yogi said during a review meeting on Friday.
Reports said that in many districts the police went overboard and harassed and arrested boys and girls, who were friends and moving around in parks or malls. Many news channels also splashed pictures of police harassing young couples in the name of Anti-Romeo campaign.
Animal Husbandry minister SPS Baghel seconded the statement of the CM saying that the police was harassing innocent college going students. “Police officials have mis-interpreted government intention and were now acting as moral police,” Baghel told ‘The Pioneer’.
The problem started after police rounded up some boys and girls in lucknow. The DGP had earlier issued a directive for police to ensure that parks, major crossings, markets, malls and other public places were made safe for women and girls.
The order stated that couples at public places should not be harassed and that the ‘Anti-Romeo’ squad would take action only against those who harass women/girls. He also instructed officers to ensure that people were not humiliated in public by blackening their faces or meted such punishments.
State BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak too said that the police should ensure that genuine youths were not harassed or punished.
In a statement issued in lucknow on Friday, Pathak said that eve-teasing should stop at any cost. “Everyone knows that eve-teasing in Kanwal area of Muzaffarnagar was the genesis of the riots of 2013 in west UP. In Bareilly, several girls refused to go to their schools due to eve-teasing. “Such incidents are the blot on the society and it was the promise of the BJP to restore the pride of women and girls,” he said.