With law and order control mechanisms left in tatters by the previous Samajwadi Party regime in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP Government faces a daunting challenge
last fortnight was very newsy in Uttar Pradesh, where incidents like murder, kidnapping, rape and theft dominated newspapers. The allegations of jungle raj flew left, right and centre, and this time it is the Samajwadi Party which has started complaining about lawlessness in the State. It is the Bharatiya Janata Party which is now defending the State Government and asking for more time to bring the State back on rails. The rot of 15 years cannot be washed away in just two months — give us some times and the situation will improve, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said many a time in his rallies or communication with reporters.
What happened in the last two weeks is a wake up call for the Yogi Government. The murder of jewellers in Mathura, kidnapping of India’s biggest glass trader in Firozabad, caste violence in Saharanpur and the alleged gang rape of four women in Jewar and brutal murder of one of the family members who protested against the incident, are grisly reminders to BJP that ruling Uttar Pradesh is not child’s play.
The only comfort for the Yogi Government has been that that the police have acted fast and arrested criminals barring in Jewar — where police say nomadic tribes are involved in the crime. This is for sure that no Government can stop crime in any State, but the crime rate can definitely be brought down if the police acts fast and arrests people involved in a crime. This will give confidence to the people that they are safe; in turn, prompt action will act as a deterrent against criminals.
The BJP needs to build that confidence. Though two months is a small time to judge the performance of any Government, Chief Minister will have to keep it in mind that the BJP came to power with a promise to improve the law and order situation. The resounding victory the party got in the Assembly election is a testimony to the fact the people believe only the Bharatiya Janata Party can restore law and order in Uttar Pradesh. The Yogi Adityanath Government will have to live up to that expectation.
The only mantra to control crime for any Government is to stamp its authority. This can only be achieved if the Government can send fear down the spine of criminal gangs. That’s what Kalyan Singh did when he was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Special Task Force of the State police prepared a list of criminals and eliminated them one by one. Sri Prakash Shukla was the top-most criminal and his encounter sent a positive message among people. The same goes true for Mayawati, who gave a free hand to the police to deal with criminals. The Samajwadi Party failed to improve law and order because of its bias. People of one caste and those belonging to one religion were given preference and their crimes were generally overlooked.
It is a political challenge for Yogi Adityanath, who has emerged as a no-nonsense politician, to control law and order in the State. But the recent happenings in Uttar Pradesh suggest that he has a long ground to cover. His first brush with the belligerent group was the emergence of some saffron outfits who, in the name of cow vigilantism, spread terror in western Uttar Pradesh. They beat up innocent people on the pretext that they were somehow involved in the cow slaughter business. The trend spread to many parts of Uttar Pradesh, with the saffron gamchcha emerging as sign of terror.
Yogi has talked tough and asked the police to arrest whosoever creates trouble. The warning was clear that no one should be spared, however powerful that person may be. This message worked, and in the Saharanpur caste conflict case, the police arrested people from both sides. The Chief Minister did not even spare the MlA from Gorakhpur, Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, considered to be his protégé, and admonished him for talking rough with a trainee IPS officer.
These incidents have shown that Yogi has the political will to tame the crime rate. But the big question is whether he has resources under his belt to handle Uttar Pradesh, which is the fourth largest Indian State with an area of 240,928 square km; population-wise it would be the sixth country in the world. It is the most populous State in the country — home to over 22 crore people. Thus, proper policing is required to control crimes across the vast State. Police officials vouch that they do not have the resources to handle the situation effectively. “It is a fact that Uttar Pradesh does not have enough police force. We do not have enough constables to monitor beat. The Sub-inspectors are over burdened. The result is they are irritated. I will not hesitate to say that sometimes we create criminals. Just to please our bosses we arrest innocent men — some of them take to crime because they know how police work”, a senior police official said, adding, “Police in Uttar Pradesh is suffering from an acute erosion of power. The fact is that criminals do not fear the police anymore.”
This official, who wanted to be anonymous for obvious reasons, is not off the mark. Human Rights Watch, in its 118-page report, ‘Broken System: Dysfunction, Abuse and Impunity in the Indian Police’, recounts how the police works in Uttar Pradesh. The report has a quote of a constable of the State, who says, “With all the mental stress, the 24-hour law-and-order duty, the political pressure, a person may turn to violence. How much can a person takeIJ We have to keep watch on an accused person, their human rights, but what about usIJ living like this 24 hours! We are not claiming that our power makes us born to work all the times. Sometimes we beat or detain illegally, because our working conditions, our facilities are bad. So we are contributing to creating criminals and militants.”
Under this situation, when a Government asks the police to control crime, the police officials find innovative ways to please their political masters. During the Akhilesh Yadav regime, the most heinous crimes were registered under the special and local laws (Sll) instead of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), to avoid the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) assessments. This anomaly was highlighted by the NCRB in 2015, when it found that under the IPC, only 112 cases were registered in the State, whereas this number was 917 in Delhi. When Sll was added to this figure, the number rose to 1,293.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath needs to discourage such innovations. He has to make the Uttar Pradesh police accountable. He has made a beginning when, on Thursday, he issued directives holding beat constables to the Director General of Police responsible for an escalation in crime. The need of the hour is to make the State police believe it can arrest the crime rate. If the Yogi can do it, he will have won half the battle.
(The writer is Chief of Bureau, The Pioneer, lucknow edition)