2019: The year when crime ruled the roost in Uttar Pradesh

The year 2019 - one of the bloodiest years in the annals of Uttar Pradesh where law and order situation reached its nadir ends on Tuesday. The year witnessed not only communal riots but also the caste conflict in which innocents lost their lives. The tyranny of the people having `right’ connections in the government too came to the fore. Those who are expected to help poor sided with the powerful and they were punished only after the judicial intervention.

The year ended on a sour note, with questions being raised on the claims of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that the law and situation in the state have improved. The large scale violence against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) proved that this Government has failed on the front of maintaining law and order. In four days, starting from December 19 people were beaten up. Innocents were arrested and rioters and sent to jail. The cries and plea of mothers, wives, fathers, and children were trampled under the police jackboot on the pretext of maintaining law and order.

Violence was witnessed in several parts of the state, including Lucknow, in which 19 lives were lost and over 200 people were injured. Properties worth crores of rupees were damaged during the protest.

This year the state also witnessed some gruesome crime and corruption cases. The killing of 10 Dalits and Scheduled Tribes in Sonebhadra district over the land dispute was a prominent political issue, in which Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took the lead. She staged a dharna in Chunar forcing the state government to announce relief. Later, the government ordered a high-level probe and scrapped the land deal.

The year also witnessed an increase in crime against women, particularly of rape, raising a big question over BJP’s much-hyped the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign.

The prominent one was of Unnao, where the ruling BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Senger was charged with raping a girl.  Though by the end of the year, a special court in New Delhi convicted the MLA with a life term, but not before when the Legislator was also charged for killing the girl's father and other members of the family.

Another BJP leader and former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand was also charged with rape by a college girl and is in jail in Shahjahanpur. With the help of local administration, the Swami charged the girl and her friends of blackmailing him, which led to the imprisonment of the victim girl too.

In another case a girl in Unnao was burnt alive after she was gang-raped by five youths. Similar incidents of gangrape were also reported from Sambhal, Etah, Kanpur Dehat, and Lucknow.

On the corruption front, the UP government had to face the Opposition’s wrath over scam in the PF investment of the UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL), where the employee's fund was invested in the private DHFL.

Later, a couple of former and present officials of UPPCL were arrested and even the Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigated in the matter.

The state government also recommended CBI probes in several projects undertaken by the previous government, including the Gomti River Front and the construction of Memorial during the Mayawati regime.