Completely deny allegations, says Bahraich SP

Bahraich (UP), Oct 22 (PTI) Bahraich Superintendent of Police Vrinda Shukla on Tuesday sought to dismiss video doing rounds in which it is alleged that the violence in Mahrajganj area of Mahsi tehsil was sponsored.

In the video released on the digital platform of a media house on Tuesday, two young men are seen discussing that the Mahrajganj riots were sponsored.

"We completely deny the allegations. People who are themselves 'high' cannot be considered reliable. In the video, they look like drunkards, folding chippad (an intoxicant). We have deployed a team to locate him, since he (the person shown in the sting video) is himself admitting his crime. We will include him in the registered cases," Shukla told PTI.

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged that BJP workers were involved in the recent communal violence in Bahraich and claimed that this used to happen during the time of German dictator Hitler when rioters were given a "free hand" to commit violence.

"If anyone did the work of rioting in Bahraich, it was the BJP leaders who were involved in it. Their MLA is filing FIR against own party workers for conspiring to cause riots," Yadav told reporters at the party's state headquarters in Lucknow.

"A video is also going viral. I want to congratulate the journalist who mustered the courage to get information from the hidden camera video that (during the violence in Maharajganj of Bahraich) the police administration was not present on the spot for several hours and they (rioters) were given a free hand," he added.

"This is how Hitler used to work. Hitler used to send his party workers wearing police uniforms to the front. The police were removed and riots were allowed to happen," Yadav claimed.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said this incident was done because the people of the BJP are scared as they have no answer to inflation and unemployment.

"They are snatching away reservation. They do not want to let the system be implemented under the Constitution," he said. PTI COR NAV AS AS