LUCKNOW: A “license for killing” and a cruel joke with the victims: Thats how Opposition parties have described the Centres decision to accord Z security cover to controversial BJP MLA Sangeet Som, an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh. Ironically, today, 27 August 2014, marks the first anniversary of those riots which left at least 60 dead, most of them Muslims, and more than 40,000 displaced.
The killings of two Jat boys had triggered three weeks of murder and mayhem in Muzaffarnagar as violence tore through village after village, fanned by provocative speeches by local politicians. Som was accused of making inflammatory speeches and uploading a fake video on Facebook that is said to have incited communal tension in Muzaffarnagar. However, based on intelligence inputs that Som, MLA from Sardhana in western Uttar Pradesh, could be targeted by extremist elements, the Union Home Ministry decided to bring him under the security umbrella of the commandos of the central paramilitary force- CRPF. “We have received a letter from the Centre regarding upgradation of Som’s security to Z category,” Uttar Pradesh’s IG (Law and Order) Amrendra Singh Sengar told PTI in Lucknow.
Sources in Delhi said Home Minister Rajnath Singh gave the nod to the proposal after he was convinced that Som faced serious threats to his life.
“It’s a weird thing. It’s a strange government. Those who are victims of riots are running from pillar to post and those who are riot accused are getting Z category security. Nothing can be a bigger irony, a bigger joke with those, whose houses were burnt and those who suffered huge losses,” Congress leader Manish Tewari said.
Accusing the BJP of making a hero out of a person who is a threat to others, Congress leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi said Someone who has been accused of instigating riots is a threat to others. I fail to understand this decision of beefing up his security cover.
The youngest of all the present BJP legislators in UP, Som, 35, from Meerut, was guarded by five security men so far. As per the new security detail, he gets about 30 guards and bulletproof vehicles. In a police FIR, he had been accused of making inflammatory speeches and uploading a video of a lynching that fanned the Muzaffarnagar riots. Now in his second stint with the BJP, having earlier served in both the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), Uttar Pradeshs ruling SP government, disassociated itself from the move.
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