Key Takeaways
- The senior BJP leader demanded that Amit Shah move the SSPs of Sopore and Baramulla.
- Police chiefs are accused of targeting BJP members while ignoring other parties.
- Recent arrests in Baramulla highlight ongoing extortion cases involving political figures.
Srinagar: A senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Jammu and Kashmir has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
He is demanding the transfer of two district police chiefs, alleging they targeted party leaders on corruption charges.
The BJP has, however, distanced itself from the letter written by its senior leader Mohammad Maqbool War who is a member of the party’s state executive committee and national executive member of the party’s Kissan Morcha.
“ …views expressed by M M War are in no way related to party,” BJP spokesman Altaf Thakur said on Friday evening.
In the letter to the Home Minister yesterday, Mohammad has claimed that SSPs of Sopore and Baramulla districts since last month were targeting BJP leaders on the basis of corruption.
He questioned as to why police were not investigating leaders of the National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party, Congress and other big fishes, who, he said, should have been behind bars.
“We are working 24×7 for the benefit and betterment of party on ground zero and the officials are not cooperating with our party workers….even we are trying to meet or call them they don’t respond,” ” Maqbool said in the letter.
The senior BJP leader has requested the Home Minister to transfer the two district police chiefs.
War even proposed the names of two police officers as their replacement.
As his letter went viral on social media, BJP spokesman Thakur said that views expressed by Mohammad against SSP Sopore and SSP Baramulla were his own purely personal in nature and BJP has nothing to with his statements.
He said BJP will take strict action against him.
“War has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking transfer of SSP Sopore and SSP Baramulla on the pretext that they aren’t responding to BJP leaders of the district. It stands clarified that views expressed by MM War are in no way related to party and BJP J&K (Unit) will take strict action against the statement made by MM War,” Thakur said.
The development comes two days after J&K police arrested a municipal councilor Ashiq Ganie alias Ashiq MLA, who was previously affiliated with BJP, along with another person on charges of extortion.
According to police, Ashiq and two other persons claiming to be affiliated with a political party had extorted Rs 5 lakh from a person to get his brother released from custody. After the arrest of Ashiq, police advised people not to fall prey to such scamsters.
This was the second extortion racket involving the member of a political party that was busted in Baramulla this month. On July 4, the vice-president of the Baramulla BJP unit Mudasir Wani and another person were arrested by police for demanding money to release a person from detention.
