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LUCKNOW: BSP Supremo Mayawati came out in support of the five activists who were arrested by the Pune police in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence. The former UP chief minister called the arrests a misuse of government machinery and an attempt by the government to spread terror among those who disagreed with it.

“The BJP government could not swallow the unity shown by hundreds of Dalits who gathered to observe the 100th anniversary of the fight between the British and the Peshwas. After the celebrations, violence was unleashed and in its garb, the arrests of people who are working for the upliftment of Dalits, adivasis and backwards shows how autocratic the BJP government is,” Mayawati said.

She added that the Pune police had addressed a poet, a woman lawyer, a professor etc, intellectuals who the police was calling ‘naxal sympathisers’ whereas what the BJP was actually trying to do through such acts was to deflect attention from its own failures.

“In fact, instead of arresting those against whom there are FIRs filed in the Bhima Koregaon incident, the government is targeting those persons who have been working for dalits, adivasis and backwards. Their lives are open books. The allegation that they were trying to spread hatred is ludicrous and malicious,” she said.

She further said that the allegation against the five arrested, that they were connected with a plot to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reminded her of the BJP government in Gujarat when, using a ‘conspiracy to kill the chief minister’ as an excuse, police encounters were taking place regularly.

