The Yogi Adityanath government has moved to withdraw cases against BJP leaders, including three MLAs, who are accused of engineering and fanning the flames of riots in UP’s Muzaffarnagar village in September 2013. The accused in the case filed at the Shikheda police station include BJP leaders Sangeet Som, Suresh Rana, Kapil Dev and Hindutva leader Sadhvi Prachi.
Speaking exclusively to The Daily Guardian, MLA Sangeet Som said that the charges being withdrawn are completely fine as the cases were bogus in nature. Excerpts:
Q: The state government is set to dismiss the FIRs related to Muzaffarnagar riot case against you. There are questions being raised against this.
A: I don’t understand why people are raising any objections against this. Aren’t the FIRs filed against us by the previous regime of Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan bogus? Didn’t the then Central government of Congress and state government of Samajwadi Party apply bogus NSA charges against us that was dismissed by the courts? Do you know that the SIT set by previous regime against us didn’t find a single charge against us? We haven’t been named in the charge-sheet by the SIT. If the cases are bogus, they of course should be dismissed. There are only two riot organisers involved—Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan. They should be sent to jail immediately.
Q: The Samajwadi Party has also reacted to this and asked why only three of your BJP MLAs are getting this reprieve?
A: The Samajwadi Party government used to airlift people from different parts to flame riots in places. There is a Maulana, who is the main accused in the riots, he’s was brought in by helicopter at the behest of the Samajwadi Party. Even when meat was found at Mohammed Akhlaq’s house, the Samajwadi Party themselves had said that the meat was from a cow. It’s the behaviour of the Samajwadi Party to felicitate and air drop people who fan riots. Then they applied bogus charges on us, the BJP leaders and put us in jails. All those who have bogus charges against them will see those charges dismissed.
Q: It is being said that because you had a major role to play during the general elections 2019, the BJP has given this to you as a gift.
A: My name should be in the charges only if I’m involved, if I’m not involved why are there charges against me? Did you ask questions when the murderers of Sachin and Gaurav were allowed to walk away scot-free from the police station? We were the ones fighting for justice of those who were caught in the riots and we were out on streets protesting against the riots that Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan engineered.