By IANS,
Lucknow : The relatives of two Uttar Pradesh ministers were booked in separate incidents, the police said Friday. While a minister’s son fired in the air and tried to abduct three villagers who opposed his stone-crushing unit, another minister’s younger brother assaulted a clerk over an electricity connection.
The police said Friday that no arrests had been made so far but a manhunt had been launched to find the accused.
Minister of State for Ambedkar Gram Vikas Ratanlal Ahirwar’s son Rohit Ratan allegedly fired indiscriminately in the air to threaten villagers and tried to abduct three villagers in Jhansi district, around 300 km from here.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), Ratan reached Cheekhan village, along with Shushil Gupta, and a dozen other people in three vehicles and started creating a ruckus.
“The villagers informed that Ratan was planning to set up a stone crushing unit in the village but the residents were opposing it,” said sub-inspector Subhash Chandra.
“We recovered empty shells and live cartridges from the spot,” he said.
As more villagers started gathering, Ratan and his associates fled and took away three villagers along with them.
“However, the villagers claimed that they chased the vehicles and surrounded them. Seeing this, Ratan and his associates fled from there, leaving their vehicles and the villagers behind,” said Chandra.
“An FIR has been lodged against five people, including Ratan,” Jhansi Senior Superintendent of Police S.K. Bhagat told IANS.
In another incident, Minister of State (independent charge) for Technical Education Sadal Prasad’s younger brother Vidya Sagar assaulted a clerk of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation (UPPCL) in Gorakhpur city, around 280 km from here.
“The complainant clerk Ramsurat Singh said that Vidya Sagar approached him in his office along with a dozen men, and started arguing about an electricity connection,” said Additional Superintendent of Police Ramesh Kumar.
“He alleged that he was manhandled, assaulted with sticks and that a person from that group also pointed a gun at him,” Kumar said.
Sagar reportedly had an altercation with Singh over an electricity connection sanctioned to his friend Hari Govind Yadav in 2005 – but which was never installed.
“When Sagar came with his men to inquire about the connection, Singh told him it could now be given according to a new estimate of the expenditure and not on the 2005 price,” a police official said.
This led to an altercation.
Irked by the incident, the employees of the UPPCL declared an indefinite strike demanding the arrest of the accused.