Giving in to political pressure, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday announced a CBI inquiry into the serial killings at Nithari village in Noida. The state government will also provide a plot of land to each one of the families of the Nithari victims.
At a press conference, Yadav said he had noted Governor TV Rajeswar’s letter advising a CBI inquiry. All political parties were also demanding a CBI probe, the chief minister added.
Yadav said the impression that he was opposed to a CBI inquiry was unjustified. He pointed out that the state police had nearly solved the Nithari killings case, as well as that of the suspected murder of Kavita Rani, a lecturer at Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut. Yadav ordered a CBI inquiry into the Rani case too.
The chief minister denied that Shiv Pal Singh Yadav, his younger brother and the state minister for PWD, had ever made the statement attributed to him, calling the Noida killings ‘routine incidents’. “Shiv Pal never said it,” insisted Yadav. He claimed a section of the media was trying blow the issue out of proportion.
He criticised the Congress and the BJP for politicising the matter, instead of sympathising with the families of the murdered children of Nithari.
{{/usCountry}}He criticised the Congress and the BJP for politicising the matter, instead of sympathising with the families of the murdered children of Nithari.
{{/usCountry}}Yadav noted that children had been murdered in Delhi, and a woman was molested during New Year festivities in Mumbai, even while other political parties were criticising the law-and-order situation in UP. “We have never made such attacks on other parties,” Yadav said.
Email Umesh Raghuvanshi: umeshraghuvanshi@hindustantimes.com