Express News Service
LUCKNOW: While three police station house officers (SHOs) were removed, three constables were suspended for leading "Black Day" protest at three separate police stations of the state capital here on Friday.
Meanwhile, two dismissed cops -- Avinash Pathak and Brajendra Yadav -- were arrested in Mirzapur and Varanasi, respectively, also on Friday for inciting policemen and garnering support for constable Prashant Choudhary, the prime accused in Apple executive Vivek Tiwari murder case.
Both Pathak and Yadav were dismissed from provincial armed constabulary (PAC) in 2012 for gross indiscipline and dereliction of duty.
Notably, the constables against whom action has been initiated had instigated the fellow cops to sport black band on their arms over uniform at three police stations of Lucknow and also at the camp office of the senior superintendent of police in Lucknow, and then uploaded their images in social networking sites.
Taking affront of the issue, CM Yogi Adityanath summoned UP DGP, Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary, home, and directed them to initiate action against the protesting cops who were backing Vivek Tiwari murder accused constable Prashant Choudhary. While the DGP ordered a probe into the protests, slain Apple executive Vivek's widow Kalpana Tewari demanded action against cops who were supporting her husband's killers.
The Lucknow police went into a tizzy as soon as pictures of police constables sporting a black band at Aliganj, Naka and Gudamba police stations in state capital went viral. Initially, the senior police officials kept claiming that the pictures doing rounds on social media were morphed but in the evening Lucknow SSP was asked to conduct an inquiry into the protests.
According to SSP, Lucknow, Kalanidhi Naithani, the initial probe indicated the involvement of three constables -- Jitendra Kumar Verma, Aliganj police station, Sumit Kumar (Gudamba) and Gaurav Chaudhary of Naka police station - were suspended as they were held accountable for gross indiscipline. The SSP also added that action against in-charges of three police stations -- Parshuram Singh (SHO Naka), Ajay Yadav (SHO Aliganj) and Dharmesh Shahi, SHO, Gudamba -- was also taken on account of indiscipline.
To a question on cops wearing black ribbons standing outside his camp office- the SSP claimed that they were not from the district and had come from other districts to be deployed in ongoing science festival. Meanwhile, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) (Law&Order) Praveen Kumar Tripathi said that no indiscipline would be tolerated in the force. "We are a disciplined unit and the law is taking its course in the FIRs lodged against unidentified constables' case," said Tripathi.
He also said that all the SP/SSPs of the district have been told to keep an eye on the activities of the constables of their districts on social media and WhatsApp groups."If any constable is found making any post then the police will initiate legal action against them," said Tripathi.
In the meantime, the two ex-cops -Brijendra Yadav of Varanasi and Avinash Pathak of Mirzapur are respectively the founder-president and general secretary of Arajpatrit Police Welfare Association which had given a call to the cops sport black band on Friday in support of Choudhary.
As per Mirzapur SP Shalini, Pathak was booked under Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 505 (statements inducing to public mischief), and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of IPC. However, Yadav was booked under Sections 353 and 505 of IPC.
