Lucknow: While the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh went on an overdrive to steer clear of the controversy surrounding the lynching of an engineer for which a ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lawmaker has been arrested, the victim's family Friday spurned the government's monetary compensation of Rs 5,00,000.
In the wake of widespread criticism from the opposition parties, the BSP government on Friday sought to impress all by slapping the stringent National Security Act (NSA), in addition to the Gangster's Act, on its party legislator Shekhar Tiwari and his three henchmen, who had allegedly beaten state Public Works Department engineer M K Gupta to death early Wednesday.
Two men mentioned in the FIR (First Information Report) as Tyagi and Bhatia as attackers, are yet untraced and the Uttar Pradesh police appear to be groping in the dark about their real identity.
The three people arrested in the murder include Manoj Awasthi, Ram Babu and Vinay Tiwari, who along with the BSP legislator were travelling in the same car when they were intercepted in Raniya locality in Kanpur Dehat (rural) district Thursday evening.
Prateek Pranjal, son of slain engineer M.K. Gupta, refused to accept the government's compensation. "In any case, I will not accept the grant being offered for the life of my father," Pranjal told IANS Friday by telephone from Lakhimpur, some 100 km from Lucknow.
A software engineer in Banglore, Pranjal has come to his parental home in Lakhimpur in the wake of his father's killing. Gupta was allegedly lynched for refusing to contribute to a fund raising drive for Mayawati's birthday bash on Jan 15.
Raising doubts over the probe being carried out into the killing of his father, Pranjal said: "I have no faith in the government and the police as they have not performed any forensic investigations into the murder."
Demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, Pranjal said, "The case must be handed over to the CBI for a free and fair trial."
Under the NSA, BSP legislator Shekhar Tiwari and his three accomplices would not be entitled to seek any kind of bail.
Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Brij Lal said: "Action will be taken against the legislator and his three supporters as per the stringent laws under the NSA."
They were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police on the directions of the state government.
According to the police, the BSP lawmaker and the three men had left the critically injured PWD engineer at a police station in Auraiya district after subjecting him to physical torture on Wednesday night.
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