Dr Ravindra Agrawal from Muzaffarnagar
The seeds of this communal tension had been sown by ruling Samajwadi Party when it started releasing the Muslims arrested in connection with terror activities. The Government declared those Muslim youth ‘innocent’. The court, however, later rejected the move terming it illegal.
After the murder of DSP Zia-Ul-Haq in Pratapgarh district, the SP government took a number of steps to ward off the discontent among Muslims and to win over their confidence again. Those measures were announced even overlooking the constitutional obligations of a Government with the sole aim of Muslim appeasement. One amongst those decisions was to grant a sum of Rs 30,000 to Muslim girls who passed tenth examination. This amount was to be spent on their education but the Government allowed them to use the money for marriages too. The National Child Rights Protection Commission took a serious note this permission as it perceived that this would encourage the marriage of underage girls. No political party opposed to State Government’s such decision just because of the fear of losing Muslim votes. But these steps created mass discontent that started brewing slowly, and the tragedy was that nobody tried to understand and gauge the intensity of this public displeasure.
The anti-social elements under SP rule are so emboldened that they even dared attack the prabhatpheri (morning procession) taken out by school children on Independence Day in Sarsava town of Saharanpur. They injured the school kids with lathis but not a single secular voice was heard throughout the country against the atrocity and no one condemned this anti-national act! Is it a crime to take out prabhatpheri on Independence Day? Should it be considered as a communal act?
A few months back some anti-social elements indulged in violence at Deoband, the important place of Islamic studies adjacent to Muzaffarnagar district. They forcibly entered into the Government rest house, broke the window panes and chased the officers. Such happenings have become the order of the day in the State. These anti-social elements didn't spare even the police and the poor cops had to run for their life.
The law and orders situation in the State has gone to dogs. According to Union Home Ministry, the state witnessed some 100 communal riots in 2012 alone. There has been spurt in crimes immediately after the SP Government came to power in the State. The cattle thieves’ gangs roam freely in villages without any fear; thefts and robberies have become the most common now in villages where they were unheard of in the past. If the cops arrest the thieves, the phones of SP leaders start ringing even before they reach police stations and they have to release them. Eve-teasing has become a common phenomenon and slightest opposition to such act invites violence from the criminals. And, the police find themselves helpless in such situations. The hands of the administration and police are tied leading the insecurity feeling among the common masses.
After Durga Shakti Nagpal episode, the police and administration find themselves in the most demoralised state and do not initiate any action on their own. Azam Khan, the most influential minister of the State, rightly says that officers should not wait for orders from Lucknow, and act according to their conscience. That is to say that the officers of the State only obey the diktats from Lucknow.
Unemployment is rising in the State but whatever the Government is doing to correct it in view of the 2014 general elections, seems to be discriminatory in the eyes of the youth of the State. The youths allege that the distribution of laptops as fulfillment of election promise was being done on a discriminatory basis leading to frustration among t
