Bareilly District Magistrate summoned, sought explanation for Facebook posts on Kasganj clashes

LUCKNOW: While Kasgnaj was limping back to normalcy after being battered by communal clashes since last Friday, the controversial Facebook posts of Bareilly DM Capt Raghvendra Vikram Singh set the higher echelons of UP government aflutter here on Tuesday.

Taking cognizance of the posts, while CM Yogi Adityanath summoned the officer and state Home department sought his explanation, Deputy CM Keshav Maurya too expressed anguish claiming that needful would be done against the officer for his irresponsible posts on social media.

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Notably, the Bareilly DM, in direct reference to Kasganj Tiranga Yatra and subsequent clashes, had put up a post on Facebook asking why raising anti-Pakistan slogans was becoming a trend for some. In an alleged sweeping comment, DM R Vikram Singh has written about a strange tradition allegedly started of late. He had questioned taking out processions through the Muslim dominated localities and raising anti-Pakistan slogans by force. Similarly, in another post, the DM said: “Why there are no slogans against China, which is "a bigger enemy" of the nation.”

According to sources, miffed over the posts by the DM, CM Yogi Adityanath believably spoke to the DM and summoned him to Lucknow beside directing the state home department to seek an explanation from
the officer. Singh had been an army officer earlier and is about to retire in the month of April, this year.
However, expressing his anguish over the issue, Deputy CM Keshav Maurya said that a bureaucrat had no right to take to social media with such posts while being on a post of responsibility. “It vitiates the atmosphere further. Some officers are still behaving like the spokespersons of some political parties. They will have to mend ways,” Maurya said adding that action would be taken against the DM.

The controversial post, however, has since been deleted, apparently under pressure from the government.
Meanwhile, the Centre too, on Tuesday, believably sought a comprehensive report from the UP government on Kasganj clashes wherein one person was killed and two others were injured. The centre also asked the state government to brief it about the action taken to restore peace in the district. Besides the death of one person and injury to two others, at least three shops, five buses, and a car were torched during the clashes following stone-pelting by a mob on a Tiranga Yatra taken out by a group of youth on Republic Day.

On the other hand, Kasganj limped back to normalcy on Tuesday. However, police crackdown continued. In search of the main accused—Salim, Naseer, Wasim—the three real brothers who had fired killing Chandan Gupta during the communal frenzy on last Friday, a team of police led by IF, Aligarh zone, Dr Sanjeev Gupta, raided their house by braking it open to get clues about them in an operation on Tuesday.
As many as 118 people have been arrested – 36 named in five FIRs lodged for clashes and 82 for violation of Section 144-- in connection with the violence so far. Amid tight vigil by security forces, most of the shops were opened on Tuesday in the city areas.

While police have released a list of violence accused, UP Special Task Force (STF) has also been roped in to carry out searches to bring the culprits to books.