News Analysis India

Tag: Uttar Pradesh

  • NSA slapped on man held for spitting on dough while making rotis in UP

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government has invoked the National Security Act (NSA) against cook Naushad, who was arrested for spitting on the dough while making rotis at a wedding function in the Meerut district last month.

    The process of NSA was completed by the police on Thursday and the file was sent to DM for approval on Thursday.

    Naushad was arrested after a video clip showing his disgusting and unhygienic act went viral on social media. The video, shot by one of the guests at the wedding at Aroma Garden of Lishari Gate in Meerut, caught Naushad spitting on the rotis before putting them in the tandoor for the dinner at a party on February 16.

    The guest, who had filmed Naushad, shared the video with other guests at the party and they left the function without having food.

    Later, social activist Sachin Sirohi, associated with Hindu Jagran Manch, and his accomplices staged a protest at Lala Lajpat Rai Medical College Police Station. This was followed by the registration of a case against Naushad under the Epidemic Act and relevant sections of IPC on February 19, and Naushad was arrested and sent to jail.

    During the investigation, the police found the charges of spitting in the dough to be true.

    Recently, when Naushad was produced in the local court for a hearing on his bail application, a group of irate lawyers and the common public thrashed him. He was also beaten up when he came out of the court.

    “The NSA was slapped against him as his release from the jail might create law and order problems in the city,” said Meerut SSP Ajay Sahni.

    Meanwhile, a similar case was reported from Ghaziabad where a cook was caught on camera spitting on the dough while making rotis. The Ghaziabad Police are also in the process of invoking the NSA against the arrested cook.

  • Covid scare: UP to seek Centre’s nod to open vaccination for 18-45 age group

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adityanath government has decided to approach the Union Health Ministry with the proposal for opening the vaccination to the people in the 18-45 years bracket and also to withdraw the mandatory co-morbidity provision for the 45-60 age group.

    Yogi’s move comes after the state logged over 200 cases in the last 24 hours.

    After consulting CM Yogi over the issue, state Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh has proceeded to prepare the proposal to seek the Centre’s approval on it. As per the sources in the health department, the Centre’s permission would be sought to open Covid inoculation for the people falling in the age group of18-45, particularly those inflicted with co-morbid conditions like hypertension, diabetes and cardiac problems.

    The proposal will also seek permission for doing away with the co-morbidity rider for taking Covid shots for the people falling in the age-group of 45-60 years. Basically, the proposal of the Yogi Adityanath government to the Centre seeks to open vaccination for all above 18 years of age.

    ALSO READ | Tamil Nadu reports 989 new COVID-19 cases, nine deaths as active cases cross 6,000 mark

    As per the State Health Department officials, the reason for sending the proposal was to take the state towards developing ‘herd immunity in the next three to four months. To achieve this, India’s most populated state needs to vaccinate around 30% of its 24 crore population.

    So far only 34 lakhs people between the age group of 45 to 60 plus have taken Covid jabs. To achieve the target for developing herd immunity, around 7 crore people need to be vaccinated in order to minimise the impact of the fresh surge in cases.

    The proposal of allowing vaccination to all above 18 is aimed at checking the spread of the deadly virus as this age group can become prone to the disease for they get out of the house more often.

    State Chief Secretary RK Tewari has already issued directives to initiate action against those not wearing masks in public places and maintain mandatory social distancing.

    He has also directed to screen air travellers at the airport and passengers at Railway platforms and bus stations coming from outside, particularly from eight states where maximum cases are reported.

    The state government has also decided to raise the RTPCR test by 50 per cent and step up the drive for focus and contact testing in addition to reaching its target of 10 million vaccinations by March-end.

  • Samajwadis change Uttar Pradesh govt whenever they take cycle rides, says Akhilesh Yadav

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav Friday claimed that every time his party workers and leaders hit roads on their bicycles, they change the government in Uttar Pradesh.

    Yadav made the claim a day before his party’s state unit president Naresh Uttam Patel is to flag off Saturday the party’s “cycle yatra” from Ambedkar Park in Rampur, culminating in Lucknow on March 21.

    “When we had undertaken cycle rides before the 2011 state assembly elections, the UP government has lost the polls,” said Yadav, addressing a rally in Rampur district. 

    The rally was organised also to highlight the alleged persecution of SP veteran leader and Rampur MP Azam Khan by the BJP government.

    Referring to the cases lodged against Azam Khan, Yadav alleged that even as when they were planning to launch the cycle yatra, the district administration, under government pressure, was preparing to lodge criminal cases against party workers.

    With the sunny weather suddenly turning cloudy during his address to the rally, Yadav said, “Look what has happened even before we have hit the cycle paddles. When we will actually hit roads on cycles, not only the weather but the government too will get changed.”

    “Somehow, God’s blessings too are with socialites. We will not have to suffer the harsh sun while cycling,” he remarked.

    Speaking about the cases against Azam Khan and his family members, the SP president said not only Khan but all those associated with him have been framed in false cases.

    He said Azam Khan is the only leader against whom so many cases have been lodged in one go.

    Yadav also accused the Uttar Pradesh government of regularly gunning down criminals and suspects in fake police encounters.

    “Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government with which we have to fight knows only one language — thok do (shoot them),” he alleged.

    “What can be expected of those who know only the language of encounter?” he asked.

  • Will purchase wheat from farmers under MSP till their stocks exhaust: UP govt

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: In a bid to allay farmers’ fears over the new farm laws, the Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday announced that it will procure their wheat on hiked MSP till their stocks end.

    The wheat procurement by government agencies would commence on April 1 and would continue till June 15. The registration process for the framers interested in selling their crop opened on March 1 and so far, over 30,000 farmers have got themselves registered, a government spokesman said. 

    In its new Wheat Procurement Policy, the government said it had hiked the MSP for wheat by Rs 50. It is now Rs 1975 per quintal for 2021-22 against Rs 1925 per quintal last year.

    Under the new policy, the state government has fixed no target for wheat procurement. It will continue wheat purchasing on increased MSP till farmers have the stocks to clear their doubts regarding MSP.

    “Farmers are welcome to sell as much wheat as they want on MSP between April 1 and June 15,” said the spokesman.

    ALSO READ | Will go to Kolkata, urge farmers to defeat BJP in polls, says Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait

    He added that about 6,000 procurement centres would be set up across 75 districts of the state. An app was also being developed to make the information about procurement centres available to farmers, he further said.

    The spokesman said that efforts would be made to keep the procurement process free from the middlemen. “For this purpose, the government has made registration mandatory for farmers on the portal of the food and civil supplies department. Those who are already registered need not apply again,” he added.

    The revenue department will verify farmers who are willing to sell more than 100 quintals of wheat on MSP to the government. For the first time, entire wheat purchasing will be done through e-Pos machines after taking thumb impressions and providing receipts to farmers to keep middlemen out.

    The state government has already begun a training session for employees being engaged in wheat procurement to make them aware of the new procurement policy and handling e-POS machines, portal, and tabulation works. The training will end by March 20.

  • Dalit man falls unconscious during Uttar Pradesh CM Adityanath’s meeting, dies

    By PTI
    BANDA: A Dalit man died after he fell unconscious during Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath’s public meeting here on Wednesday.

    The 35-year-old man fell unconscious during the meeting at Government Inter College ground at around 2.30 pm, police said.

    He was rushed to the trauma centre where doctors declared him dead, SHO of Banda City Kotwali, Jayashyam Shukla said.

    The victim has been identified as Vijay Sonkar, a resident of Marhi Mata Mandir in Banda town.

    He used to sell vegetables on the footpath, the officer said.

    The SHO said prima facie the cause of death appears to be cardiac arrest, adding that the body has been sent for post-mortem.

  • Uttar Pradesh govt to purchase wheat directly from farmers under MSP

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh government will purchase wheat directly from farmers from April 1 to June 15 under the Minimum Support Price Scheme.

    The wheat purchase will start from April 1 on the fixed minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,975 per quintal this year, Uttar Pradesh Food Commissioner Manish Chauhan said in an official statement.

    For selling wheat, it will be mandatory for farmers to register on the website of the Department of Food, which has been started.

    Farmers can register themselves on their own or through cyber cafes and public convenience centres, he said.

    He said a total of 6,000 purchasing centres are proposed this year, including those of the Food Department and other purchasing agencies, where wheat will be procured from farmers.

    The purchasing centres will operated from 9 am to 6 pm.

    For the convenience of farmers, online token system has been arranged this year under which farmers will be able to get tokens for the sale of wheat at the purchasing centre as per their convenience, he said, adding that the geo tagging of the purchase centres is being done by the remote sensing application center to help farmers get the location and address of the centres easily.

    For ensuring transparent procurement, wheat procurement will be done through ‘Electronic Point of Purchase’ and the facility of nominee has also been arranged for the convenience of the farmers.

    If a farmer is unable to come to the purchasing centre himself, he can nominate a member of his family.

    The nominated member will have to be mentioned in the registration form.

    Aadhaar authentication of the nominated member will also be done, he added.

  • Man arrested for marrying woman using false identity, trying to force her to convert in Uttar Pradesh

    By PTI
    GORAKHPUR: A Muslim man has been arrested here for allegedly marrying a woman by hiding his identity and then trying to force her to undergo religious conversion, police said on Monday.

    The accused, Mainuddin of Bhelapur village, had met the woman last year and introduced himself as Munna Yadav, the police said, quoting the FIR.

    His cousin and accomplice Rehman Ali was arrested on Monday, they added Mainuddin and the woman grew close and eventually got married at a temple in Sant Kabir Nagar district and started living there, according to the FIR.

    After some time, the accused disclosed his real name and religion, and started pressuring the woman to convert and also assaulted her for refusing, the police said.

    On Saturday, the woman came to know that Mainuddin was planning to get married again and informed police on ‘112’, they said, adding that an FIR was subsequently registered.

    “Main accused Mainuddin, aka Munna Yadav, was booked under sections 323, 504, 506, 419 and 120B of the IPC and the provisions of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020, and arrested on Sunday,” Station House Officer, Harpur Budhat, Devendra Kumar Singh said.

  • POCSO court hands death sentence to rape and murder convict in UP

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: A special POCSO court in Jaunpur awarded death sentence to an accused who had raped and brutally murdered an 11-year-old minor girl in August 2020.

    Judge Ravi Yadav also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on him. The order has been delivered within seven months after day-to-day hearings in the case.

    On August 6, 2020, Balmukund alias Govinda, who hailed from Chanduali district, took the victim and her sister out for buying them biscuits and toffees. He took the girl to a cornfield and raped her after sending her sister home. Fearing that the girl would divulge his truth to her parents, the accused strangled the victim to death by pouring acid on her face and body to destroy her identity.

    When the girl did not return home, her parents launched a search but in vain. Then the family lodged a missing complaint at the local police station. Two days later, the villagers found the victim’s acid-burnt body. The victim’s post mortem report confirmed rape and death due to asphyxia.

    On the statement of the victim’s younger sister, the police arrested Govinda from his hometown Chandauli. The shopkeeper and victim’s younger sister appeared as witnesses during the trial. They named the accused claiming that he took the victim with him. The prosecution produced as many as 11 other witnesses during the trial substantiating the rape and murder charges on the accused mentioned in the charge sheet.

    After hearing the arguments from both sides, the POCSO court observed that the crime committed by the accused comes under the category of the rarest of rare and the perpetrator should be awarded no less than a death sentence.

    Family members of the victim said that justice was done to their daughter by the court. The defence counsel said that they would approach a higher court to appeal against the verdict.

  • Priyanka’s UP visits give Congress chance to strike a chord it long lost

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW:  For years those wanting to see Congress do miracles in Uttar Pradesh have been driven to the point of over-ambition, with each election throwing up a disarray that the party has found itself in. In a huge state besieged by a religious divide and riven with caste calculations, the grand old party has not been able to find a ground to support itself, much less deliver a message of cohesion in its ranks. 

    The prolonged farmers’ protest erupting along the state’s western districts appears to have given the party a chance to reinvent and strategise in the changed political landscape where religion indeed helps in striking a chord. The dates of Priyanka’s religious visits depict an emerging paradigm of the Congress strategy to regain ground in the country’s politically most crucial state where assembly polls are only a year away.

    The party has been out of power in the state for almost three decades; it has just one member from the state in the Lok Sabha representing Rae Bareli and seven MLAs in the 403-member state Assembly. Even this flock of seven is not intact as two of them – Aditi Singh and Rakesh Bahadur Singh — representing Rae Bareli have struck discordant notes for quite some time. Ironically, Rae Bareli is the parliamentary constituency of the bparty’s acting president Sonia Gandhi.

    The ongoing farmers’ agitation has prompted Priyanka Gandhi to undertake back-to-back forays into UP, of which she is the party in-charge also. “These trips were planned as an offensive against the Centre’s farm laws by holding ‘kisan panchayats’ in western UP. But the trips’ greater symbolism lies in their religious and caste appeals for Mission 2022,” says a political expert.

    In her bid to evoke ‘class consciousness’ among farmers, the Congress leader is seen projecting herself as a devout Hindu to counter the BJP’s aggressive narrative. The party has been able to successfully “sell” images of Priyanka with her wrist wrapped in ‘rudraksha.’ There were other pictures mass-circulated: of her offering prayers at the Shakumbhari Devi temple in Saharanpur followed by the ‘sangam snan’ the next day and her seeking blessings from Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, followed by a ‘langar’ at Sant Ravi Das temple in Varanasi a week ago.

    She has also been trying to placate the Jats, most of whom are concentrated in western UP. The Jats have supported the saffron brigade during the last three elections. The Congress’ attempt to re-strategise was visible first when Priyanka Gandhi reached Rampur to attend an event in the memory of a young Sikh farmer who died during the Republic Day violence in Delhi. This was her first visit to western UP after creating a flutter by visiting the family of the Dalit victim of Hathras gangrape and murder case.

    On Feb 10, Priyanka attended a big ‘kisan panchayat’ in Saharanpur. She followed it up with similar gatherings in Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Mathura. Her images of boat ride at Sangam and her tweet thanking the boatman, Sanjay Nishad, was probably part of her caste outreach,” said Prof AK Mishra, a political scientist. Like the Jats in western UP, the Nishads constitute a major backward caste with a significant caste assertion in the region of the Ganga-Yamuna ‘doab’. 

    Unlike the Yadavs among the OBCs who had strongly been with the Samajwadi Party and Jatavs among the Dalits with the BSP, the Nishads and other sub-castes have been a floating vote bank who, of late, had been with the BJP. Clearly, the Congress leader has set her sight on this caste calculation. “Only the time will tell how Priyanka’s efforts translate into votes.

    Similar efforts by the party leadership went in vain in 2019. Whether such optics help Congress in UP will be interesting to watch,” said Prof Mishra.  “In the presence of strong regional satraps like the SP and BSP and the huge cadre-based party like the BJP, UP won’t be an easy terrain for the grand old party in 2022,” said JP Shukla, a political commentator. 

    Priyanka’s recent religious tripsFeb 10: Darshan of Shakumbhari Devi in Saharanpur and visit to shrine of a sufi saintFeb 11: Holy dip at Sangam, visit to Mankameshwar Temple in PrayagrajFeb 27: Prayer at Sant Ravidas Temple in Varanasi

  • Minor dies after UP hospital denies post-surgery stitches, child rights body seeks action

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW:  The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on Saturday shot off a notice to the Prayagraj district administration seeking a complete report on the death of a three-year-old girl at a private hospital in Prayagraj on Friday night.

    The girl was handed over to her kin by the doctors of Unity Medicity Hospital without stitching and dressing the wound following abdominal surgery. The minor was left to die by the doctors over non-payment of dues to the tune of Rs 5 lakh by her parents.

    The NCPCR asked the Prayagraj DM Bhanu Chandra Goswami to conduct a detailed inquiry into the case, register an FIR against the culprits under relevant sections of IPC, and recommend strict action against the doctors and staff of the hospital.

    The Commission also recommended compensation to the victim’s family.

    The state government has also ordered an inquiry into the incident, the video clips of which are doing rounds on social media platforms.

    The hospital sources, however, denied the incident while talking to media persons. Frequent calls to the hospital authorities went unanswered.

    The distraught family from Manjahanpur in Kaushambi had recently brought the girl to the Unity Medicity Hospital in Prayagraj after she complained of abdominal pain.

    The case came to light after a Twitter user posted a series of tweets sharing pictures and details of the inhuman treatment meted out to the family. Taking cognizance of the matter, Prayagraj district magistrate Bhanu Chandra Goswami constituted a two-member investigation committee comprising the chief medical officer and additional district magistrate (city) to establish the truth of the matter.

    “As the family belongs to Manjhanpur, the Kaushambi police has sent the body for autopsy to get the exact time and cause of her death,” added the DM. Meanwhile, the video making rounds on social media allegedly shows the minor writhing in pain with a pipe sticking out of her nose while the father is explaining the plight.

    Another disturbing video shows the minor with an open wound and house flies swarming it.