Ali Md. Maaz for BeyondHeadlines
A page on facebook i.e. justice-Help for Manal has attracted my attention and as usual I gone through the page and read the article on it. After reading I contacted the father of the deceased Manal, his narration compelled me to run to Aligarh. Manal was a bright student and topped the B.Sc Mathematics from Aligarh Muslim University in the year 2012. The narration of the father of the departed soul compelled me to think that really the system is jammed in Uttar Pradesh.
The slogan of Samajwadi Party sometimes ago was Uttam pardesh is turned now as ulta Pradesh. What the family members of the deceased have narrated to me, I am just forwarding it to the reader.
The family had received a call from the G.R.P Varanasi regarding the death of a boy named Manal Bansal . The person on telephone said as “your son is dead now are you coming to take the dead body or not?” The family immediately rushed to Banaras to see what has happened. They reached Banaras on 22/8/2012. The father says that he has seen the body in two halves inside the G.R.P station. The G.R.P said that it is an accident case and they refused to take any complaint regarding the murder of his son. The father Gyanesh Gupta says that his son had made complaint regarding the ragging inside the BHU hostel. The deceased had received a call from one of his friend to come to attend the class. And after that his body was found on the track. After 13 days the family again went to Banaras to lodge a formal complaint for suspicion of murder of his son. The G.R.P meanwhile has not collected any evidence in this regard. The entire BHU administration was engaged in hiding the real story and there was no co-operation from B.H.U. The two police stations started fighting over jurisdiction as none of them were willing to handle the case for reasons best known to them. On 3/9/2012 when they went to Police station Lanka, Banaras, the S.H.O refused to receive the complaint and asked to go to G.R.P. Due to intervention of some higher police officials they anyhow received the complaint. On 4/9/2012 a complaint was also given to G.R.P but none of them has turned it into F.I.R. It is shocking that G.R.P issued a statement in newspapers that the deceased had committed suicide on the basis of information given by the guard of the goods train. Parents of the deceased had then contacted the driver and guard of the train. The guard said that he had not seen Manal committing suicide. The driver had said that no one came in front of engine.
Meanwhile many higher officials of the police, politicians of ruling class, social worker had been contacted to get the F.I.R registered but of no use. On 1/9/2012 a letter demanding the CBI enquiry of murder of deceased was sent to the Chief Minister of U.P and the copies of the same to many others including HRD ministry and Home ministry, Delhi and Prime Minister of India. Again a letter was sent to DGP Lucknow for registration of FIR. Between 25/8/2012 to 3/10/2012 the father of the deceased met with 5 MLAs of ruling party and was assured of the action.
On 13/09/2012 an order was issued from C.M office to register the FIR immediately and take action. On 5/10/2012 the family member met with the CM personally.
On 5/10/2012 the special secretary Zuhair Bin Saghir had passed an order/request on the letter of an MLA for SSP Banaras to mark the culprit and take the appropriate action against them within 10 days and inform accordingly. Another order was sent to Home secretary to take appropriate action on the request of marking the case to C.B.I.
On 16/10/2012 the family members again met DGP at his office in Lucknow and he had faxed an order on the letter of the father of deceased for registration of FIR immediately and taking action accordingly and asked the family members to meet the Banaras SSP.
On 17/10/2012, the family met the Banaras SSP namely Sh. B .D. Palson at his residence but there he misbehaved with the family members and ruled out any involvement of incident of ragging inside the BHU and when some news-cuttings were shown to him he started shouting. It is shocking that SSP has not taken any action though after 3 orders from the higher authorities.
On 18/10/2012, the family members again visited the IG Banras and he made a call and asked the S.H.O police station Lanka as what was the problem in registration of FIR. The family member then went to Police station Lanka. Inside the police station after the registration of FIR bearing Nil/2012 under section 302 , 201 IPC, the S.H.O asked the whole family member to come to his office and crossed all limits of decency and threatened to implicate the family members in the false criminal case. It was important to note that they are not willing to lodge the FIR and they had lodged only after the intervention of IG of Police. They again said that there was no incidence of ragging inside the B.H.U.
The father had lodged a separate complaint to DGP Lucknow, against the misbehavior of the SSP Banaras and S.H.O Lanka police station on dated 31/10/2012. Again on 24/11/2012 a letter was sent informing the non-functioning of police officials to Home Minister, Delhi and Home secretary Lucknow.
From 2/01/2013 many RTIs and their appeals have been filed to get the information regarding appointment of I.O. and the present status of the case but in these four months the FIR was being played like a football in between the department and no action has been taken in this regard. It is strange that no I.O. has been appointed to investigate this matter. The police after registering of FIR has neither put the mobile on surveillance nor obtained the call details of the mobile. Not even a single student was called to get ascertain as what had happened on the last night with Manal.
Bizarrely in the reply to one of the RTIs dated 12/5/203 the police claimed that they were thinking to put the mobile on surveillance and due to transference of the case to CB/CID on dated 15/2/2013 it could not be done. Finding no alternative left, the family moved another application to get the matter investigated by the CBI or by CB/CID. On 06/02/2013 the principle Home Secretary handed over the investigation to the CB/CID. On 27/02/2013 the family met ADG Jag Mohan Yadav and Add. SP Pankaj Kumar had prepared a team. It is strange to note that after handing the case to CB/CID the mobile was not put on surveillance for more than 2 and half month. No leads were taken in this regard.
The hard reality is, all the law enforcing agencies are at the verge of collapse in the state of U.P. The police think for 4-6 months to put the mobile on surveillance. The family has met with near all the big guns of ruling party and countless local leaders but to no avail. Even the Banars SSP refused to accept receiving any fax or any order to investigate this case from C.M Office. Either the SSP is telling a lie or the order which was sent to the SSP was not sent in reality. Only God knows or people in system know the reality.
The local police of Banaras is not following the order of their higher officials. The letter and order being sent from the CM office is only a piece of paper without any weight. In UP only small piece of pictured paper has importance and not the complaint of ordinary citizen. The political leadership has lost their respect in the eyes of bureaucracy. Other important fact is: the entire bureaucracy is divided among the UP- one part is favoring ruling party and the other group is favoring opposition. But the sufferers are the voters. The political head of state is not functional in the state to get his order enforced but limited to attend the meeting and to inaugurate the beauty salon, barbershop, showrooms, and yes of course cycle shops. This is happening with an influential business man of Aligarh who also knows to use facebook and can afford lot of time to go to Lucknow and Banaras but just imagine what would have been happening with the villagers. The savior of the voters in Uttar Pradesh is Ram ji only and yes Ram ji is also going to protect some drowning ship of a political party in Uttar Pradesh.
