IPS Association reject Sahay Commission report on Muzaffarnagar riots

Lucknow, March 21  The Indian Police Service (IPS) Association of Uttar Pradesh has rejected Justic Vishnu Sahay's report on the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots that have blamed former SSP Subhash Dubey for the violence that killed 63 people and rendered over 55,000 homeless.

Secretary of the Association, Inspector General Prakash D has confirmed that they did not agree with the Sahay Commission report as Dubey was in charge of the district for just 12 days and while he had given a 27-page testimony, not a single line was included in the final report.

Senior police officials also alleged the state government was trying to "find a scapegoat" in Dubey and hence he has been picked up while three other district police chiefs were spared where the riots had also taken place. 

Office bearers of the association told IANS that targeting a selected official for such large scale violence was not justified.

The IPS Association has also defended the then Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) inspector Prabal Pratap Singh who was indicted for lapses that allegedly led to the riots. This is the second time in the past few days that police officials have resented some action of the state government. 

Recently, they pressurised the government for revoking the suspension of Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Lucknow D.K. Chowdhary.

The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that this was a clear case of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's government trying to deflect its responsibility in the riots and trying to make an official a scapegoat. 

"Could such large scale violence be due to the failure of one person?" questioned BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak, adding that every attempt of the ruling Samajwadi Party government to shirk its role in the 2013 riots would not succeed.