Uttar Pradesh Government has been busy firefighting, dousing one fire after another in recent weeks. After hurriedly handing over the mysterious ‘suicide’ of Narendra Giri to the CBI to investigate, it has been forced to scramble and contain the damage following the death of a Kanpur businessman Manish Gupta (38) in a Gorakhpur hotel.Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has contained the damage for the time being by offering a cash compensation, a job to the widow and promises of more to come. But he himself is vulnerable to growing discontent as people start questioning the free hand he gave to the UP Police, which has become a law unto itself.The fact that the six policemen involved in the incident were allowed to ‘abscond’ without undergoing any interrogation or medical examination, speaks for itself. Also the fact that the police took away all 36 CCTV cameras in the hotel, including the ones on the fifth floor where the deceased’s room was, is also revealing.The incident also calls into question the conduct of the police. In case of any tip-off or suspicion, police can surely question guests in the hotel at dinner time or early in the morning ? Why would they go around waking up guests past midnight demanding that they fish out their ID cards, which they may have already shown to the reception and which might have been duly recorded in the Register? This ‘routine’ midnight inspection by the police needs to be reviewed urgently. An only son, the deceased businessman had got married barely five years ago. A property dealer, he left behind his widow and a four year old son. His widow, Meenakshi M. Gupta claimed that her husband had gone to Gorakhpur, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s home turf, at the invitation of a businessman in Gorakhpur. Two other property dealers from Gurgaon were also invited and all three were put up in the hotel. While all eyewitness accounts suggest the deceased died after being assaulted by the policemen, even on Thursday, September 30, ADG (Law & Order) Prashant Kumar claimed that the businessman had died after trying to flee from the police. The Gorakhpur SP parroted the police version that they were still ascertaining what the deceased was doing and why there were three men together from different cities. UP Police in another desperate bid alleged that the deceased was drunk. But they would not say if the policemen too were drunk.
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