The outrage over upright IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal's suspension has pushed the Samajwadi Party (SP) government in Uttar Pradesh into a corner. Amid mounting pressure, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has promised to "look into the issue". "Once I get back (to Lucknow) tomorrow (Tuesday), I will look into the issue. There shouldn't be any debate on suspension," the CM, who is on a visit to Karnataka, said in Chitradurga.Akhilesh had earlier said that Nagpal - the sub-divisional magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar who took on the sand mining mafia in Noida - had been suspended for clearing the demolition of a mosque's wall, which could cause communal tension.It's no secret, however, that the 200-batch IAS officer of Punjab cadre was penalised for cracking down on the sand mining mafia in Noida. Local SP leaders had allegedly complained to the leadership that her action was hurting the party's political interests. The government's move has not only invited widespread condemnation from political parties, citizens and netizens, but also provoked the IAS officers in the state to finally raise their voice and rally behind their colleague.A delegation of UP IAS Association, accompanied by Nagpal, met acting chief secretary Alok Ranjan on Monday and demanded that the suspension be revoked.Ranjan said Nagpal's case would be "reviewed sympathetically". "Members of the association told me that Nagpal is a young and respectively a new IAS officer and suspending her was too harsh a punishment. I have assured them that the matter would be placed before the CM," he said.However, he was evasive when asked why officers were being victimised by the Akhilesh government.While suspensions and unceremonious transfers are routine, officers have even paid with their lives in the last one-and-a-half-year of SP rule. They are hounded, humiliated and threatened by ministers, legislators and even local SP workers, who have the party leadership's blessings.On several occasions, SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh have announced on the party forum and in meetings with officers that they should work in close coordination with party leaders or face the music.Only recently, Mulayam declared at a meeting of SP office-bearers in Lucknow that "the officers who do not listen to ministers and senior party leaders would be punished". Emboldened by the party brass openly backing them, ministers and SP leaders bully and threaten bureaucrats with impunity.Javed Abidi, chairman of the UP Developed System Corporation, who enjoys the rank of a state minister, asked his supporters in Amroha on April 24 to beat the officers who refuse to meekly bow to their diktat.On April 23, textile minister Shiv Kumar Beria threatened to "strip any SHO of his uniform within 24 hours and throw him out if he doesn't listen to us". Earlier on April 13, it was minister of state for health Shankhlal Manjhi who told party workers in Ambedkar Nagar that they had the licence to thrash officers. "If the officers don't listen to you then lock them up in a room and bash them up. And don't bother about the repercussions," he said.Ashok Khemka, an IAS officer who was transferred in October last year for cancelling an alleged irregular land deal between Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, and DLF, was again shifted amid a controversy over irregularities in the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation that he unearthed during his short tenure of five months as its head.Mugdha Sinha, the first woman collector of Jhunjhunu, was transferred for taking on the local mafia. Organisations of farmers, traders and students came out in support of Sinha, who was posted in the district in September 2010.Low-profile 1988-batch IAS officer Poonam Malakondaiah proved to be a hard nut to crack for politicians, businessmen and lobbyists. As the agriculture commissioner, she dragged multinational seed company Monsanto to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, following which the company had to reducethe price of BT cotton seeds.Senior Dalit bureaucrat Uma Shankar, a 1990-batch IAS officer, was shunted to an insignificant post for unearthing cremation shed scam as additional collector of Madurai, which eventually led to J. Jayalalithaa's poll defeat. He faced suspension for daring to take on the Marans as joint vigilance commissioner.Known for his unorthodox style of policing and "daredevilry" in taking on UP's political brass, Swaroop, a 1994-batch IPS officer, has been transferred 38 times in last 18 years. The standing joke is that by the time he unpacks his stuff, his bosses hand him his transfer order.IPS officer Vikas Kumar was transferred out of Bharatpur district after he cracked down on illegal mining mafia in early 2012. A software engineer from IIT-Kanpur, Kumar was transferred at a time when police investigation was close to identifying the powerful kingpins behind illegal mining.Kolkata Police crime wing's first woman chief Damayanti Sen, the IPS officer who cracked the Park Street gang rape case in February 2012, was transferred to a relatively low profile posting two months later for proving CM Mamata Banerjee wrong. She was transferred again within a year to Darjeeling as the new Deputy Inspector General in February this year.Chittorgarh collector Samit Sharma was shunted out in 2010 because he refused to sack a clerk for failing to stand up when a local Congress MLA entered his office. Over 12,000 government employees went on mass leave to protest against the transfer, but it had no effect on the state governmentA 1992-batch IPS officer, Rahul Sharma ruffled the feathers of the political dispensation during the Gujarat riots. As the SP of Bhavnagar in 2002, Sharma opened fire at a Hindu mob. Two months later, he was shunted out to a low-profile post in Ahmedabad police control room.A 2002-batch Haryana cadre Indian Forest Service officer, Sanjiv Chaturvedi had five criminal cases slapped on him for taking on the authorities. He petitioned the Supreme Court in 2012 requesting a CBI inquiry into numerous scams detected by him during his sevenyear service in Haryana.