Samajwadi Party members staged a walkout from Uttar Pradesh Assembly during the Question Hour after the Parliamentary Affairs Minister claimed that there was not a single fake encounter in the state between July 2017 and September 2018.
Listing several instances of killing of “innocents by police in cold blood” in the name of encounters, Leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary alleged that the BJP government has given the police free hand to kill people. He demanded compensation to the families of those killed in fake encounters.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna, replying to a question of BSP member Shyam Sunder Sharma, clarified that there was not a single case of fake encounter. “There was just one case of a policeman killing a person in Lucknow and two policemen were sent to jail in that connection and also removed from the service,” he said.
Khanna further said that all the encounters were done to eliminate the criminals who were posing a grave threat to the society. He added that five policemen, including a sub-inspector, were also killed in encounters with the criminals during that period.
Not satisfied with the reply, the SP members walked out of the House.
In another question by SP member Ujjawal Raman Singh over the rising crime against women in the state, Khanna claimed that it has come down by 5-7 per cent.
The Opposition members, quoting NCRB report, claimed that the crime rate against women has gone up but Chaudhary termed the government’s report fabricated.
Singh also said that crime against women during the previous Samajwadi Party regime was less than what is reported in the BJP rule. He claimed that there are 32 cases of dowry reported every day in UP, besides 52 cases of rape and 161 cases of molestation on a daily basis. He said the number of these crime was much lower during the previous regime.
However, the treasury bench rejected the figures presented by the Opposition and Khanna said that photocopy of the report cannot be authentic.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said 21 people have been killed in riots and over 400 policemen injured in stone-pelting incidents over the past six months.
While replying to a question by Rakesh Pratap Singh (SP), Yogi said that in the last six months, 21 persons were killed in riots, protests and sit-in in the state. In incidents of stone-pelting by protesters, 400 policemen were injured and 61 policemen sustained firearm injuries, he said in a reply in writing.
The deaths apparently took place during the anti-CAA violence in December last year, but the question and the CM’s reply had no mention of this.