JHANSI: SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday targeted the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over alleged rise in cases of atrocities against women and claimed that the National Commission for Women had served the "maximum notices" to it.
He was speaking a day after meeting the mother of a 13-year-old gang-rape survivor in Lalitpur district.
The girl was allegedly raped by four men over three days and was allegedly sexually assaulted again by a cop at a police station, where she had been left by her attackers.
The accused station house officer (SHO) was arrested from an area near the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday.
Talking to reporters, the Samajwadi Party president said, "Today, the law and order situation of the state is worst in the entire country, the highest number of notices by the Women's Commission are being served to the Uttar Pradesh government."
The police, who are considered the protectors, have themselves turned into devourers, Yadav said, adding that the SHO was caught only after his party's people reached there.
Yadav also demanded a compensation of Rs 50 lakh to the kin of the rape survivor.
Targetting the Yogi Adityanath government, Yadav said the police had turned "autocratic" because of the current dispensation.
"The police have turned autocratic. When they are used to serve personal interests and win elections, how will you stop them from working arbitrarily. It is the result of all this that the police have today started committing crimes such as rape inside the police station in Lalitpur," he said.
"Now, when will bulldozers be run on this police station,'' Yadav sought to know in a jibe at the chief minister.
Adityanath has in the recent past earned the sobriquet "bulldozer baba" due to his frequent reference of the heavy machine which his dispensation deployed to raze alleged ill-gotten property of criminals and mafias in the state.
Yadav also hit out at the Adityanath dispensation over the issue of loudspeakers after "completely destroying the law and order as well as the economy".
"They asked for votes from the public in the name of removing loudspeakers of mosques, but now they are seeking praise by removing them also from temples. Since when did the BJP become this secular," he asked, adding that it was only a tactic to divert the attention of the people from issues such as inflation and unemployment.
He also took a dig at the BJP over its assurance to double farmers' income by 2022, saying, "Everyone knows how much farmers are benefitting today."