SP leader IP Singh tweeted this image on Friday. (Source: Twitter)

Samajwadi Party leader I P Singh claimed that he put up hoardings with photographs of expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and former Union minister Chinmayanand in Lucknow next to the hoardings with photographs and addresses of people who were issued notices to pay for damages to properties during anti-CAA protest in the city in December last year.

Sengar is serving life imprisonment in a rape case. A law student (23) has accused Chinmayanand of raping and sexually harassing her for over a year.

Singh, who is facing a case against him for calling the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ajay Bisht, claimed that the hoardings were put up at some places in Lucknow. They read, “Yeh hai Pradesh ki betiyon ke aaropi, inse rahein saavdhan (These are the accused of the state, be wary of them.”

Regarding Chinamayanand, it read, “Former Union minister, BJP: Offence pertaining to the abuse of one’s position by a person in authority. Charge section 376C, charges of stalking under 354D, wrongful confinement under section 342 and criminal intimidation under section 506 of the IPC.”

On Sengar, the hoarding said, “Kuldeep Singh Sengar (MLA, BJP): 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping or inducing a woman to compel for marriage, 376 (rape) and sections 3 and 4 under the POCSO Act.” The black banners on the hoardings also had IP Singh’s name and Samajwadi Party written at the bottom.

In a tweet, Singh wrote with photographs of the hoardings put up by him attached, “When protesters have no privacy and even after Supreme Court and High Court judgments, the Yogi government is not removing the hoardings. At Lohia chauraha, I have put up posters of some criminals named by court. Daughters should be careful of them.” The Lohia chauraha is an important intersection in Gomti Nagar area of Lucknow.

While I P Singh claimed that the hoardings put up by him were removed by the police, senior police officers denied the claim. “They (hoardings) have been removed by police. I have also uploaded a video on Twitter showing policemen getting the hoardings removed,” Singh said.

However, Lucknow commissioner Sujeet Pandey said, “I don’t know about any such hoardings. I won’t comment on this because I don’t know.”

Circle Officer (Gomti Nagar), Santosh Kumar Singh claimed that no posters were found. “We have not removed any such posters because we could not any. The person who has put them might have removed them or is lying about putting them up. We don’t know about that, but the police did not find any such posters on Lohia chauraha,” said Singh.

Singh on Friday tweeted, “Yesterday at midnight, police came out to save face of ‘criminals who commit crimes against daughters’ Sengar and Chinmayanand. If the same urgency was shown by police in saving the daughters, crime rate in UP would not have been so high. The UP government is with the criminals. The Yogi government is completely exposed.”

Singh, a former BJP leader, quit the party in February 2019 and joined the SP. In December last year, an FIR was registered in Varanasi against I P Singh for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by referring to CM Yogi Adityanath by his old name.

Samajwadi Party national spokesperson Rajendra Choudhary said, “The hoardings put by our leader have been put in reaction to the Lucknow administration putting up photographs and addresses of people protesting against CAA-NRC. This is unconstitutional and even after the courts have asked the government to take them down, they haven’t,” said Choudhary.