Lucknow: It was late on Friday evening when UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath was taking a high level meeting of officers in his office at the Sachivalaya Annexe when a seemingly bizarre scene unfolded on the road outside.
The high drama began when an elderly man wearing green turban and a kurta-pyjama came on a scooty, parked it near the wall and spread out a cloth in the middle of the road and started offering “namaaz”. He had a knife with him too.
The cops posted in the area woke up to the incident only when cars began stopping and the traffic was jammed on the road.
The man, after offering “namaaz” got up and started shouting slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Passers-by recorded the incident and within minutes, the video clip went viral on the social media.
By then, the man had disappeared from the spot.
The police swung into action and the CCTV footage was scanned to identify the man. Two constables posted on the road were suspended.
Hours later, the man was tracked down to Aishbagh and was identified as Rafiq Ahmad. He was arrested and booked under the Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act.
SSP Kalanidhi Naithani told reporters on Saturday that the man appeared to be mentally unstable. “We are getting him medically examined and will then interrogate him,” the SSP said.
The incident, meanwhile, has exposed the lapses in the chief minister’s security and also the inability of the cops to handle such unforeseen incidents.
