The Uttar Pradesh government was “in the know of the dangerous activities” happening inside Jawahar Bagh in Mathura unleashed by the Swadhin Bharat Subhash Sena but the government sat on repeated requests of district magistrate for more force so that an operation could be launched to evict the armed group, said Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, a senior lawyer from Mathura whose PIL in the Allahabad High Court pushed the authorities into taking action against the squatters.
Mr. Tomar, a former president of the Mathura bar association, told The Hindu on Saturday that “the State government [Uttar Pradesh] ignored several letters of the Mathura administration informing it about rather dangerous activities of the cult group and its implications. However, there was just no response from the higher officials in Lucknow to these letters”.
Lack of responseA senior district official confirmed to The Hindu about the absence of any response. “Starting January 2015, district-level officers, including the DM, sent about eight letters to the State headquarters. The last letter was sent to Lucknow just a few days before the violence. But there was no response,” he said.
“People in Mathura think that the group received direct and indirect patronage of the State government, and if the government wanted, the armed groups would not have grown to this extent,” the senior lawyer said.
When there was no compliance of the court order despite several months elapsed since the court had asked the land to be vacated, Mr. Tomar filed a contempt petition in February this year. According to Mr. Tomar, the DM had asked for five ADMs, 10 DSPs, 10 ASPs, 10 SDMs, 150 sub-inspectors, 1,800 constables and 200 policewomen, 12 companies of PAC, five company of RAF and two company of lady RAF force.
‘Force not provided’“However, till date, the government did not provide the required force. It cost us two brave police officers and several human lives. People in Mathura are asking why the government did not want the authorities to act against the illegal and criminal group,” the lawyer said.
