Fatehpur: On Tuesday, police raided and brought down a three-storey building in Baqargunj, Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, belonging to SP Member of Parliament Haji Raza. The demolition exercise was conducted under secret scrutiny, with security personnel drawn from ten police stations nationwide. District Police Officer Jitender Yadav Sub-divisional Magistrate Pradeep Raman and Circle Officer Sushil Kumar Dubey monitored the operation, employing two Bulldozers. Raman said the demolition was needed because the building was constructed on the wrong map.
Haji Raza had earlier made news in June this year after a BJP functionary complained to him. The complaint was made about abusive comments labelled by Raza on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the SP contestant Naresh Uttam Patel’s triumph in the Lok Sabha. Regarding these allegations, a special investigation team, also known as SIT, was formed to investigate Raza and all his associates and assets. Earlier, former lawmaker Vikram Singh had appealed to the chief minster Yogi Adityanath to form this SIT to probe into the criminal activities, including corruption by Raza.
The destruction of Raza’s building is also not an isolated case, as many other buildings and structures have also been razed to the ground through bulldozer justice. This term encompasses the use of bulldozers in the demolition of buildings, most especially as a form of punishment. It has assumed a political hue in recent years, more so in those BJP-governed states and is viewed as having an agenda to perennially harass the ‘minority’ — with charges of intolerance in the way these drives are often conducted.
This is why ‘bulldozer baba’ has been a term given to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, as his administration has utilised bulldozers to demolish protest-related properties. And one in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, where the home of Congress functionary Shahzad Ali was brought down for alleged participation in a riot over comments by priest Ramgiri Maharaj considered blasphemous by Muslims.
The Congress Party’s president, Mallikarjun Kharge, protested BJP strategies, mentioning that the party persecutes minorities and tries to scare citizens with bulldozers.
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