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Custodial death: After Priyanka visit, Mayawati rushes team to Agra
LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati rushed a party delegation to Agra where a dalit sanitation worker died in police custody on the intervening night of Tuesday-Wednesday
LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati rushed a party delegation to Agra where a dalit sanitation worker died in police custody on the intervening night of Tuesday-Wednesday.
The move by Mayawati, who slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government over the custodial death of the dalit youth, came a day after Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited the victim’s family amid high drama that also included a brief detention at the police lines.
“The custodial death of a sanitation worker in Agra is most saddening. A party delegation led by Gayacharan Dinkar would visit Agra, meet the victim’s kin and also interact with officials to get justice in the case,” Mayawati tweeted.
Mayawati also referred to the recent killing of a Kanpur trader in Gorakhpur and said that the Gorakhpur and Agra incidents had put the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the dock.
“The BJP government is in the dock and BSP demands that the government must bring about necessary changes in the policing system,” she tweeted.
Earlier on Wednesday, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi managed to meet the dalit victim’s family after a nearly three-hour stand-off with the police.
According to SSP Agra Muniraj G, the accused dalit sanitation worker had admitted to his involvement in the theft of ₹25 lakh from the police ‘maalkhana’ (store) and his health deteriorated during recovery of a sum of ₹15 lakh from his house in Agra. The victim’s family has contradicted the police claim.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had said that no one would be allowed to take law and order into their hands.
The BJP is projecting Baby Rani Maurya, a Jatav dalit like Mayawati, as its own home-grown Jatav face ahead of the 2022 UP polls.
