Reacting to Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s statement that the brutal gangrape of a mother-daughter duo in Bulandshahr ‘could be a political conspiracy’, the victims’ family said that the Uttar Pradesh minister has ‘gone mad’.
“Azam Khan pagalpan ka shikaar ho gaye hain (Azam Khan has become a victim of madness),” a member of victims’ family said.
The family said that they were extremely upset at the remarks of the senior leader.
Azam Khan stoked a controversy yesterday when he said that the gangrape of 14-year-old girl and her bother by dacoits off the Delhi-Kanpur Highway could be a political conspiracy by the opposition in an attempt to defame the Akhilesh Yadav government.
He said the assembly polls are near and opposition parties can “stoop to any level to defame the Samajwadi Party”.
“We must also probe whether this entire controversy is a move by some Opposition elements to defame the government. People who want to come to power may be stooping this low for political interests,” state Minority Affairs Minister Khans told reported on Monday.
Khan clarified a day later and said, “I did not say "virodhiyon ki shaazish (opponents’ conspiracy), I said that UP polls are close and so many such incidents are happening which needs to be investigated.”
“It is our responsibility to deal with this incident seriously,” Khan said on Tuesday.
“State Govt is totally with the victims of Bulandshahr incident, I am personally with them more than everyone else got together. Strict actions are required in the matter, we are very sensitive to the family's pain,” he added.
The Samajwadi Party government is already facing flak from opposition parties over the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
On Monday, opposition parties demanded the resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over the incident and asked him to own up moral responsibility of the heinous crime.
Around six armed men stopped the family car on the Delhi-Kanpur highway early Saturday morning, according to the FIR registered later on Saturday. The armed men dragged the members to nearby fields and proceeded to rape the teenager and her 35-year-old mother. The other members of the family were tied up.
Police have so far arrested three accused in the case.
