Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on July 6 described the arrests over the Hathras stampede as a conspiracy in itself, alleging that the Uttar Pradesh government is trying to hide its failure by making “minor arrests”.
Mr. Yadav, in a post on X, demanded an immediate judicial inquiry into the arrests, and tagged a letter addressed to him by a resident of Mainpuri district, Ankit Yadav, who claimed that his father had been wrongly framed in connection with the stampede.
“To hide its failure in the Hathras incident, the Uttar Pradesh government wants to shirk responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of people by making minor arrests. If this happens, it will mean that no one has learnt any lesson from the administrative failure in such events, and such accidents will keep repeating in the future. The government and administration are needlessly arresting people who were away from the original venue with a specific motive and is preparing to hold them guilty after the arrest. These arrests are a conspiracy in itself. There should be an immediate judicial inquiry into these arrests so that the game of the BJP government of U.P. can be exposed in front of the public,” wrote Mr. Yadav on X (formerly Twitter), tagging the letter of Ankit Yadav, who claimed that his father who was arrested had no link to the stampede that killed 121 people.
‘No concern for poor’
Criticising the BJP government, the former Chief Minister said that if the present regime says it had nothing to do with such events, then the government had no right to remain in power. “Most of the poor people who attended this programme were exploited, oppressed, deprived, suppressed; on this basis it also means that the BJP government has no concern for such people. Whereas the government’s attention should first be directed towards such people,” he wrote.
The State government has formed a three-member judicial commission headed by a retired High Court judge to probe the Hathras tragedy, looking also into the possibility of a conspiracy behind the stampede. The police have arrested six sevadars (volunteers), including main accused Devprakash Madhukar, who were part of the organising committee.
