UP government takes action against IAS officer Raghvendra Vikram Singh for Facebook post
The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has taken action against a senior IAS officer, Raghvendra Vikram Singh, for putting up a post on Facebook that appeared to blame right-wing groups for allegedly provoking communal clashes in Kasganj town on Republic Day. Mr Singh, the district magistrate, had later removed the post.
The UP government has now issued a chargesheet and asked Mr Singh to reply within 15 days. An initial probe into the officer's conduct found his post to be violating service rules, says the state government. If the state government does not find the officer's reply suitable, then further action will be initiated against Mr Singh.
The officer's Facebook post, which has been deleted, had said a "strange trend" has started of late -"to visit Muslim areas and raise slogans against Pakistan. Why? Are they (Muslims) Pakistanis?" The same thing had happened in Khailam village in Bareilly, Mr Singh's post said.
A short service commission army officer before joining the civil services, Mr Singh, 59, was last year posted as district magistrate of Bareilly, about 100 km from Kasganj town.
He put up the Facebook post just two days after 22-year-old student of commerce, Chandan Gupta, died in communal clashes that broke out in a Muslim-majority locality of Kasganj, during the "Tiranga bike rally", taken out by members of the local unit of the RSS-affiliated students' group, Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad or ABVP.
Two more people were also injured in the Kasganj violence. Naushad, a labourer who was on his way back home, was hit by a bullet in his leg in the clashes that killed Chandan Gupta. In the violence and arson that followed, Mohd Akram was also injured when a mob, out for revenge, dragged him out of his Maruti car and tried to gouge out his eye.