Yogi claims Ramrajya in the dock due to rape and increasing crime in UP

August 16, 2020: A 13-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped in Lakhimpur Kheri, UP and her dead body was found in a sugarcane field. August 10, 2020: Sudiksha Bhati was on a motorcycle with her younger brother near Aurangabad in the morning when she died. The girl was a US-based Babson College student and was scheduled to return on 20 August.

The family alleges that two persons riding a motorcycle were harassing Bhati, causing an accident.

August 6, 2020: A 6-year-old girl was kidnapped and raped in front of her house in Hapur. She was thrown into the bushes covered in blood. His condition is serious at this time. The child has suffered serious injuries on his private part. He is being treated in the hospital in Meerut.

August 5, 2020: An 8-year-old girl was tried for rape in Khurja in Bulandshahr district and was strangled to death when she made a noise. His body was also found from the sugarcane field.

CM Yogi claims: "There are minimum crimes in UP, generally crime in Uttar Pradesh is minimum in three years. Law and order is in better condition and will be in better condition even further.

The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh made this claim on August 5, 2020, the same day when an eight-year-old girl was tried in the western region of the state and she was murdered when the child started making noise. When the media across the country was busy in the coverage of the Bhoomipujan ceremony of Ram temple in Ayodhya, a parent was searching for his eight-year-old missing girl, about 650 km from it, but found his child's body in a field.

Four days before that on July 31, 2020, an eight-year-old girl was raped and strangled to death in Muzaffarnagar, UP. The body of this girl was also found dumped in the sugarcane field. These incidents, which took place within the last 17-18 days, present a dark picture of the claim that 'minimum crime in UP'. These are the incidents that came in the news, there may be many such cases which could not reach the media reports.

Giving a vote of thanks to the Governor's address to the Legislative Assembly in February this year, Yogi Adityanath had said, "Ramrajya should only be in this country, not socialism. Our government is committed to bringing the concept of Ramrajya to the ground ''. Are women safe in the beginning of this 'Ramrajya'? There have been many claims on this question, but statistics are presenting the opposite picture from these claims.

Figures falsely claiming CM Yogi

The National Crime Records Bureau i.e. NCRB's annual report in January this year says that Uttar Pradesh is at the forefront of crime against women. There were a total of 378,277 cases against women in the country in 2018 and 59,445 cases were reported in UP alone. This means that about 15.8% of the total crime committed by women in the country.

Apart from this, there were 43,22 cases of total rape in the state. That is, 11 to 12 rape cases were filed every day. The special thing is that this is a report prepared on those crimes which are registered in police stations. From these reports, many such cases remain, whose complaint could never be lodged in the police station. The NCRB comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs of the country.

CM Yogi, who has given the safety of women his preference, talks about 'minimum crime' in the state while giving interviews to news channels and on the other hand his government presents different figures in the assembly. The Yogi government had said in response to the question of Nawaz Hassan, a Samajwadi Party MLA, that in comparison to 2016, there has been an increase in crime against women in every segment in 2017.

What happened to the anti-Romeo squad, women's helpline number?

After taking oath as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, Yogi Adityanath first announced the formation of Anti Romeo Squad. The task of this team was that it would save school-college girls from molestation. But only after its launch a dispute arose over its functioning. Many such cases started coming up where even anti-Romeo squads started harassing boys and girls sitting together or walking with consent.

The news came to light on 30 March 2017, where the police on anti-Romeo patrol harassed a brother and sister in Rampur and brought the police station. These brothers and sisters came from the village to Rampur city to get medicine. When both have proved that they are siblings, then the police are accused of asking for 5000 rupees instead of leaving.

Many such news came out about the anti-Romeo where he did not give security but increased the difficulties. In June 2019, because of increasing cases of crime in the state, the Yogi government ordered the state police to reactivate the anti-Romeo squad.

According to the data of the action of the anti-Romeo squad found by the BBC, in 10 zones including Prayagraj, Agra, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Bareilly, Kanpur, the anti-Romeo team registered a total of 7134 cases, 11222 arrests were made. But statistics say that there is no major impact in reducing crime against women in Uttar Pradesh.

181 women helpline closed, workers did not get a salary for one year

Akhilesh Yadav started an ambitious project Women Helpline 181 on March 8, 2016. It was launched in 11 districts under the pilot project. The responsibility of running this helpline number was given to a private company GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute for five years under the Memorandum of Understanding.

After this, there was a change of power in Uttar Pradesh in March 2017 and Yogi became the Chief Minister. According to the NCRB of 2017, Uttar Pradesh reached number one in the case of crime against women with 56011 cases. Because of this, in June 2018, the Yogi government extended the scheme to 75 districts by 11 districts.

But the state's Women and Child Development Department withheld funds from last February. More than 350 women employees working for this helpline for 11 months have not been paid. In this helpline, telecommunicators in the headquarters of Lucknow who provided help through phone conversations, field counselors, and a rescue van were placed in each district. This helpline number was discontinued in June.

On July 24, 2020, the Yogi government has linked this women's helpline number to the police helpline number 112, which means that the number now used for emergency calls to the police will be used as a women's helpline.

When the women employees asked them to go on a hunger strike if they did not get the salary, then the Yogi government has asked to pay the arrears as soon as possible, although these women have not received the salary so far. That is, despite increasing crime against women, the women's helpline was closed.