The failure of state Intelligence agencies in providing actionable inputs on Monday’s Bandh call once again led to large scale violence leaving one dead, several injured and property worth several crore rupees gutted.
Earlier too, be it caste violence in Saharanpur, communal violence in Kansganj, killing of several persons including two police officers in Mathura trying to vacate park in 2016, on several protests by Siksha Mitra, Angadwadi Workers, political agitations in lucknow, the failure of intelligence agencies of the state surfaced but top officials refused to take any lesson from the goof-ups.
Sources said that the Bandh call was given in advance and the growing anger amongst members of SC and ST following denial of quota in promotions in government jobs and now relaxation in SC & ST Act etc, was common knowledge. Yet, sleuths of State Intelligence agencies took no pain to gather actionable inputs and pass them on to district police so that timely strategy could be drawn to thwart violence during the Bandh on Monday. Sources further said that in the absence of any vital input, UP Police assumed the Bandh to be a routine protest call thereby allowing anti-social elements to freely indulge in violence in at least a dozen districts. It was only after reports of large-scale violence started pouring in since Monday morning that top officials including Principal Secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar and DGP, OP Singh woke up from their slumber and alerted district police chiefs to take to the streets backed by police force to thwart any further exigency in the state.