WHILE THE miscreants, who threw acid on senior Samajwadi Party leader and former MLA Ramakant Misra on Wednesday, are still at large, the incident has left cops a baffled lot.
Acid has usually been used as a weapon to inflict serious injuries on a person with whom the assailants had a grudge. In nearly all such cases jilted lovers have been found using acid either themselves or through some hired person, say cops.
But what has left men in uniform flummoxed is the age of the senior leader.
Though they rule out the possibility of a love affair at the age of 70, they are still not ruling out the possibility of a woman's hand behind this incident. They have their own reason to support their argument. A woman might have been used by an inner political adversary, who nurtured grudge against Ramakant, whose stature had developed further following his significant role in the victory of Rewati Raman Singh in the last parliamentary election from Allahabad seat.
Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is also reported to have stated some time back that Ramakant would be the next SP candidate from Bara Assembly constituency.
{{/usCountry}}Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is also reported to have stated some time back that Ramakant would be the next SP candidate from Bara Assembly constituency.
{{/usCountry}}If sources are to be believed, a woman teaching in one of the institutions founded by the leader had been expelled by him sometime ago.
There had been an argument between the two and the teacher had allegedly threatened Misra. While this could be one case, there are several woman teachers in the 26 institutions founded by the leader and it is difficult to say that none other nurtured a grudge against him at this stage, say cops, who have been forced to get to the bottom of this case and crack it as soon as possible because of the CM's interest.
On the other hand, two teams under as many deputy SPs Rajeshwar Singh and Rahul Srivastava formed by the SSP Vijay Singh Meena could not make any headway in this case. They could so far only talk to the family members of the critically injured leader and conducted raids at some places on the basis of conjectures.
It may be mentioned that Ramakant Misra had been attacked with acid by two mobike-borne youths in Balrampur locality near his house on Wednesday while he had come out for his routine morning walk around 6 a.m.