Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Lucknow: Close on the heels of the killing of Mangesh Yadav, who was an accused in a robbery case and carried a reward of Rs one lakh on his head, in an alleged encounter with the Uttar Pradesh police triggering a backlash from Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, the police on Monday shot dead another accused in the same case Anuj Pratap Singh in an encounter in Unnao district.
While Singh was gunned down in an encounter with the cops after he allegedly opened fire at the police when asked to surrender, his father blamed Akhilesh for the killing saying that his (Akhilesh) wish had been ‘fulfilled’.
Akhilesh had, after the killing of Mangesh, accused the state government of targeting ‘criminals’ from some particular castes while those hailing from the ‘thakur’ community were being allowed to surrender.
The SP president had said that the mastermind behind the robbery at a jewellery shop in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur town last month during which cash and jewellery worth Rs 1.5 crore were looted, Vipin Singh was asked to ‘surrender’ as he hailed from Thakur community.
According to the police sources here, Anuj Pratap Singh, who had been absconding after the robbery, was intercepted in Unnao district and was asked to surrender but he and his accomplices opened fire at the police. Anuj was killed in the retaliatory firing.
‘’Akhilesh’s wish has been fulfilled as now a Thakur has been killed in an encounter,’’ Anuj’s father said. His family alleged that Anuj was killed in a ‘fake’ encounter.
Akhilesh, however, said that he was against ‘fake’ encounters irrespective who was killed in them. ‘’Only the weakest consider encounters as their biggest might,’’ he said.
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also, in a post on social media, said that the encounter proved that the BJP did not believe in the rule of law. He also said that a professional force like STF (Special Task Force) was being used like a ‘’criminal gang’’ under the BJP regime and demanded a probe into all suspicious encounters in UP.
UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, however, hit out at Akhilesh saying that the criminals could also have killed customers at the jewellery shop and those killed could also have included a ‘Yadav’.