Lucknow:
It was the turn of the BJP today to stage a protest march in Lucknow against the glut of crimes against women that have grabbed attention lately with brutal force.
The women's wing of the BJP demonstrated in the streets today. Yesterday, the Congress defied government orders to hold its "
nyaya" or justice march. The BJP workers were forced into buses by the police and will be kept in police custody till this evening.
Political parties, no doubt, are spurred into their demonstrations at least partly by the fact that UP votes next year. But Mayawati's government has been less than graceful about either the protests or the criticism leveled at it by women's rights activists. The Chief Minister has suggested that the Congress-led union government singles out her state to highlight weaknesses. Last evening, her bureaucrats went public with her blueprint for improving women's safety. This includes punishment for police officers who try to intimidate female victims who want to register formal complaints of violence.
In Delhi, determined to keep up the pressure, Digvijaya Singh, the senior Congress leader who is in charge of UP, met the Prime Minister to discuss the alleged breakdown of law and order there. He was accompanied by the party's state president -Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who was detained during the Congress' march in Lucknow yesterday. Mr Singh referred not just to the recent rapes across the state that have made headlines, but to the death of a doctor in a Lucknow jail.
(Read: Digvijaya, Rita Bahuguna take UP war to PM)
Dr YS Sachan was found hanging in a jail bathroom earlier this week. First, jail officials said he had committed suicide. But the discovery of eight injuries on his body attributed to a sharp weapon led many including his family to allege he was murdered. Dr Sachan was due to talk to the police this week about a case that could have serious implications for the Mayawati government. "Corruption has reached shameful proportions in UP," said Mr Singh.
Dr Sachan was Deputy Chief Medical Officer in the Department of Family Welfare. He was arrested in April for allegedly hiring hit men to kill his boss, Chief Medical Officer Dr BP Singh. The department they served handles 3000 crores every year and is allegedly riddled with conspiracies that allow government officials and manufacturers of medical supplies to siphon large amounts of money.