Hall of shame in UP grows bigger by day

Lucknow: There have been many before him and there will be many after him.

BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar, charged with rape of a minor girl and the murder of her father in police custody, is the latest entrant to the “Hall of Shame” in UP. He is in the exalted company of former ministers and legislators.

Another recent entrant in this hall of shame being the former SP minister, Gayatri Prajapati who was booked for the rape of a mother and her minor daughter on the directives of the Supre-me Court. Mr Prajapati was arrested last year and is still in jail.

In December 2010, the then BSP MLA Pushot-tam Naresh Dwiwedi was charged with the raping and illegally confining a girl in his house in Banda. When the girl managed to escape, he got her arrested on charges of theft but fate later caught up with him and the case was given to CBI after which he was arrested and sent to jail.

In 2007, Anand Sen , BSP MLA form Faizabad, was inducted into the council of minister but could not be sworn in since he was in jail on murder charges. Another swearing in ceremony was held for him when he got bail. Six months later, in November 2007, he was charged with the kidnapping and murder of a dalit girl and was asked to resign.

He was given a life term by the lower court but later acquitted by the high court.

In 2013, SP MLA from Sultanpur, Arun Varma, was charged for the gang rape of a girl but the Akhilesh government later made sure that the legislator got a clean chit during investigations.

The victim went to court that ordered a re-investigation in the case in 2016 but in 2017 the victim was found murdered. Her family blamed Mr Arun Varma for the murder of the girl. The case is pending in court.

In 2007, BSP leader Ram Mohan Garg, who enjoyed the status of a state minister, was charged with the rape of a woman in Aligarh. He had allegedly made a recording of the act to blackmail her. Mr Garg was later arrested in the matter.

The most famous occupant of the hall of shame is former BSP minister Amar Mani Tripathi and now his son Aman Mani Tripathi.

In 2003, Mr Aman Mani Tripathi was arrested for the murder of a poetess Madhumita Shukla who was pregnant with his child. He, his wife Madhu Mani and nephew Rohit Chaturvedi were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007 and the sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. The couple is serving the sentence in Gorakhpur jail.

His son Mr Aman Mani Tripathi, a first time MLA, seems to be already following in his father’s footsteps.

He was arrested for the alleged murder of his wife Sara in July 2015 and was arrested by the CBI in 2016.  He is also an accused in the kidnapping of a Gorakhpur business in Lucknow. More recently, a video clip of a local business went viral in which he accused Aman Mani of usurping his prime land in Lucknow.

A retired DGP, who did not wish to be named, said, “The hall of shame is growing because lawmakers know that they can get away with murder — quite literally — if they can pull the right strings. Former SP minister Ram Murti Varma was charged with burning alive a journalist in Shahjahanpur. Despite having the video recording of  the journalist’s dying declaration in which he accused the minister and his men of setting him on fire, the politician was not even questioned, leave alone arrested”.