Akhilesh Yadav accuses BJP of staging killings to cover law and order lapses, citing a pattern of targeting without due process and linking it to political vendettas.
Allegations of favoritism in police postings deepen discrimination against Dalits and OBCs, eroding merit-based enforcement and public safety.
Daily rapes, murders, and loots highlight women's insecurity; UP leads NCRB stats in crimes against women and Dalits, contrasting SP's past safety initiatives like the 1090 helpline.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged that the BJP government in the state was resorting to “fake encounters” without achieving any improvement in law and order, and accused it of making caste-based postings in the police department.
“Law and order does not improve by doing fake encounters. It improves by appointing good officers in the field. When the government makes appointments only on caste basis to favour its own people, how will the law and order situation improve?” Yadav, according to a party statement, said while addressing party workers and leaders from various districts at the SP headquarters here.
The SP chief alleged that under the BJP rule, “women and daughters are not safe”, and criminal incidents such as “rape, murder and loot” occur every day
Yadav's accusations echo a long-standing opposition narrative against the Yogi Adityanath administration's aggressive encounter policy, which has seen over 200 alleged criminals killed since 2017, according to state police data. Critics, including the SP, have repeatedly labeled these as "fake encounters," pointing to a perceived pattern where suspects—often from marginalized or opposition-aligned communities—are targeted without due process. In a September 2024 X post that went viral, Yadav described the BJP's approach as: "Pick someone first, then make up a story of a fake encounter, then show fake pictures to the world... The more the BJP tries to prove such encounters true, the bigger the lie."
Recent cases have fueled this rhetoric. Just last week, the encounter killing of a suspect in a Sultanpur robbery case drew sharp criticism, with Yadav questioning if it was engineered to suppress evidence of police complicity. Historical precedents, such as the 2023 encounter of gangster Atiq Ahmad's son Asad, which Yadav called a "fake encounter" to eliminate political rivals, have only amplified these claims. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has echoed similar sentiments, stating no such "fake encounters" occurred during her tenure, positioning it as a BJP-specific "drama" to deflect from governance failures.
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