BJP MLA from Anupshahr Sanjay Sharma wrote in his letter to the 83 former bureaucrats. (Source: ANI) BJP MLA from Anupshahr Sanjay Sharma wrote in his letter to the 83 former bureaucrats. (Source: ANI)

A day after 83 former bureaucrats wrote an open letter assailing the Uttar Pradesh administration’s inaction over the death of a policeman and local youth in the Bulandshar violence, a BJP MLA penned a reply, blaming the ex-officials for not sympathising with the slaughter of 21 cows.

“You’re seeing deaths of only Sumit and a police officer but not the deaths of 21 cows,” BJP MLA from Anupshahr Sanjay Sharma wrote in his letter to the 83 former bureaucrats. The development comes amid Opposition’s allegations that the UP police were shifting the focus of their investigation from nabbing the accused in the policeman’s death to solving the case of alleged cow slaughter.

On Wednesday, a group of retired bureaucrats, including the likes of former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, alleged that under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath “hooliganism and thuggery have been mainstreamed into governance”.

Inspector Subodh Singh and a youth, identified as Sumit, were shot dead in the December 3 violence over alleged cow slaughter. Seventeen people, including a soldier Jeetendra Malik alias Jeetu Fauji, have been arrested. However, the main accused in the case, Bajrang Dal’s district convenor Yogesh Raj, is still on the run.

The charred remains of SHO Subodh Kumar Singh’s vehicle. (Express file photo) The charred remains of SHO Subodh Kumar Singh’s vehicle. (Express file photo)

The ex-officials also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue. “Our Prime Minister, who is so voluble in his election campaigns, and who never tires of telling us of how the Constitution is the only holy book he worships, maintains stony silence even as he sees a Chief Minister handpicked by him treat that same Constitution with sheer contempt,” they wrote.

The letter was written on a day Adityanath changed his stance on the Bulandshahr violence and dubbed it a “political conspiracy” by “cowards” who now stand exposed. Earlier, he had called it a “part of a big conspiracy” and subsequently an “accident”.

According to the letter, the violence in Bulandshahr was a deliberate attempt to display majoritarian muscle and send a message to the Muslim communities living in the region that they “have to live in fear, accept their subordinate status and conform to the cultural diktats of the majority community”.

They also requested the Allahabad High Court to take suo motu cognizance of the Bulandshahr incident and order a judicial inquiry.

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