india

Updated: Oct 22, 2019 17:02 IST

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday panned the Yogi Adiyanath-led Uttar Pradesh government for the rising crimes against women and called the situation “shameful”.

“The state is Number 1 in crimes against women. It is shameful and the state government must do something about it,” Priyanka Gandhi, who was answering questions from reporters, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The Congress leader was headed to Rae Bareli, her mother Sonia Gandhi’s constituency, when a posse of reporters questioned her about the crime in the state. Seated in the back seat of a car, with a marigold garland around her neck, she was also asked baout the broad daylight murder of a a HIndu outlfit leader Kamlesh Tiwari, but the car sped away.

Gandhi’s comments come in the wake of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) releasing its long-awaited report on 2017 crime statistics, in which Uttar Pradesh accounted for 10.1% of the total crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). However, the report, prepared for the period between January 1 and December 31 in 2017, said that states such as UP and Delhi could not be statistically compared to other regions as they had started online registrations of cases, leading to an additional spike.

Kamlesh Tiwari, the founder of the Hindu Samaj Party (HSP), was murdered inside his house by two men in Lucknow’s Khursheed Bagh on Friday in the fallout of “communal hate”, according to the police.

A 23-year-old law student, from Shajahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, who accused former union minister Chinmayanad of rape was arrested last month by a special investigation case on charges of extortion.

According to the SIT, the law student and her three friends -- Sanjay, Sachin and Vikram -- allegedly demanded Rs 5 crore from Chinmayanand, failing which they threatened to upload online video clips showing him getting massages from her.

In another case from the state, the CBI has booked angarmau MLA Kuldeep Singh, since removed from the BJP, for allegedly conspiring to murder and attempt to murder the young woman and her lawyer in connection with a road accident case. The woman had alleged that Sengar had raped her in 2017 when she had visited his house. In 2018, the woman attempted self-immolation outside Yogi Adityanath’s residence in Lucknow, demanding FIR against the MLA.

In September, CM Yogi Adityanath gave three mantras of praise, warning and action to senior police officers for improving the law and order situation in the state.

Addressing additional directors general (ADGs) of various police zones here, he said policemen doing good work should be appreciated, the slack ones should be warned and those with a dubious character should be dismissed.

Yogi told officers that the state government had adopted a ‘zero tolerance policy’ for crime and corruption. A cyber police station will be established in all police ranges and a forensic laboratory will be set up in the premises of the police stations, he said.