By IANS
Lucknow : Far from getting unnerved by a Samajwadi Party backlash following a student’s death in police firing in Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav’s native village Saifai, in Etawah district, earlier in the day, Chief Minister Mayawati Wednesday issued a stern warning to the former chief minister.
Justifying the police action, Mayawati said, “Action was taken against those indulging in violence and many of them were criminals and anti-social elements.”
“Let me make it loud and clear that even Mulayam Singh Yadav or his brother Shivpal Yadav himself would not be spared if they would support anti-social element indulging in such violence,” she told reporters.
“This is not Mulayam Singh Yadav regime under which ‘goondas’ had a field day and could even go to the extent of forcing a police officer to sit on the bonnet of their car and make him spin around the state capital. I mean business and there is no room for compromise with any outlaw.”
As if to buttress her stand against any kind of lawlessness, she sought to point out, “You remember, when my own party MP Rama Kant Yadav indulged in violence, I got him arrested from my own residence where he had come to see me; so there is no room for any pardon to mischief-mongers.”
Refuting her bete noire Mulayam’s charge that her administration had resorted to barbarism, Mayawati accused Samajwadi Party activists of indulging in large-scale violence and arson.
“A huge mob collected in Saifai and started pelting stones at the police. Soon the situation got out of hand and the police were left with no option but to open fire, in which one student by the name of Mukesh Kumar Yadav died,” the chief minister said.
She pointedly accused the Samajwadi Party leadership of fuelling and precipitating the crisis.
“It all started when some ruffians sent by the Samajwadi Party tried to disrupt a function at a local degree college Tuesday. As they took to violence, the police was constrained to move in but when SP goons began to act tough with the cops, who were even manhandled, the police was not left with any option but to arrest the trouble-makers,” Mayawati said.
“Some senior SP leaders also stepped in only to add fuel to fire and even misbehaved with the cops, so they had to be taken into custody,” she added.
Blaming Mulayam’s men for Wednesday’s renewed violence, the chief minister termed the statewide demonstrations by Samajwadi Party activists as “orchestrated”.
Meanwhile, reports reaching here said violence and arson were witnessed in almost half a dozen places while students staged protests and demonstrations in almost a dozen other places.
They demanded immediate lifting of the ban of student unions that was imposed shortly after Mayawati assumed power in May last year. Scores of students and SP activists were arrested in different districts, where arson, roadblocks, demonstrations and other protests were witnessed over the day.
What provoked them further were the arrests of Mulayam’s son, parliament member Akhilesh Yadav, and brother Shivpal Yadav, a powerful minister in the previous government, who had come out on the streets in support of arrested SP activists Tuesday evening.
Later, talking to reporters, Mulayam charged Mayawati with “unleashing terror” on his party men. He demanded “murder” proceedings to be initiated against the officials involved in the firing.