Akhilesh Yadav Transfers Top Mathura Officials As BJP Turns On The Heat

Lucknow:

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has transferred two top officials out of Mathura, where 24 people including two police officers died last week in clashes between the police and members of a cult who had illegally occupied a 260-acre park for two years.    

The District Magistrate of Mathura Rajesh Meena and Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Singh have been transferred on Mr Yadav's orders and new incumbents will join soon, the chief minister's office said today.

Questions have been raised on police preparedness in the administration's operation to evict the members of the cult from the park and the state's senior minister Shivpal Yadav has admitted there might have been "administrative lapses."

The police were clearly taken by surprise when they were attacked by the encroachers with swords, grenades and guns.

They have discovered that the cult - about 3,000 members of which had arrived at the park for a protest in 2014 and never left - ran a parallel judicial system and had its own constitution, jails and several "battalions" of soldiers, also gave arms training to children.

The Akhilesh Yadav government of the Samajwadi Party has already been under pressure over law and order in the state in the run-up to crucial Assembly elections early next year, and the BJP has launched an all-out offensive against it, threatening a state-wide agitation over the Mathura issue.

BJP chief Amit Shah has alleged that those who attacked the police were "goons of (UP's) PWD Minister Shivpal Yadav," who is the brother of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and the chief minister's uncle.       

The party has demanded a CBI inquiry into the violence. A petition has also been filed in the Supreme Court demanding a CBI inquiry.

"There might be administrative lapse in Mathura. The inquiry is underway and those patronising such encroachers won't be spared," Shivpal Yadav has said, but has warned the BJP not to make allegations against him "without proof."

Samajwadi Party also came out in his support today. "The BJP's protest does not affect us. They are a party that always believes in spreading misinformation, lies and canards," said party's Madhukar Jaitely.