Bulandshahr violence: Absconding Bajrang Dal activists surfaces in video
Bulandshahr/Lucknow, Dec 5: A Bajrang Dal leader absconding after mob violence over alleged cow slaughter that killed a police inspector and a youth in Bulandshahr surfaced in a video clip Wednesday, claiming innocence.
The western Uttar Pradesh unit of the right-wing organisation has also claimed that its Bulandshahr convenor Yogesh Raj was not involved in the violence, but said he should surrender.
The Bajrang Dal suggested that the probe should be conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation, and not the state police.
The police, who arrested four people after Monday's violence, reported no further arrests till the evening.
Uttar Pradesh police chief O P Singh suggested there was conspiracy behind the violence.
With lakhs of people collected for a 'Tabligi Ijtema', a congregation of Muslims, 40 km from Mahaw village where the cattle carcasses were found, police also succeeded in containing what could have been a communal riot, he told PTI.
Security was visibly reduced but tension persisted in Chingrawathi, Mahaw and Naya Bans villages of Bulandshahr's Siyana tehsil on Wednesday.
Many people kept away from their homes, fearing arrest in connection with the two FIRs registered by police - one over the alleged cow slaughter and the other for the violence that followed.
No classes were held in schools in the area where a mob torched a police post and attacked policemen on Monday after some carcasses were found in a field.
Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh, who had initially probed the 2015 lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri, and 20-year-old Sumit Kumar died of gunshot injuries in the attack.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will meet the slain inspector's family on Thursday, officials said in Lucknow.
Bajrang Dal's western Uttar Pradesh region co-convenor Praveen Bhati claimed Yogesh Raj had nothing to do with the violence.
"He will cooperate with the police and come out at the right time," Bhati said.
"Certainly he should surrender, but I should also make it clear that the probe should be conducted by a bigger agency for the truth to be revealed, he said, suggesting that the CBI should take over.
In the video, the man identifying himself as Yogesh Raj said when he heard about a "cow slaughter" at Mahaw village, he went there with his supporters.
The police also reached there and we went to the Siyana police station for filing our complaint (about the carcasses)," he said.
Raj said that while he and his supporters were still at the police station they got to know that villagers were pelting stones.
I have nothing to do with it. I have full faith in God. I will be cleared of all accusations," he said.
The Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and the state's Rapid Action Force (RAF) deployed in the area around the violence site has pulled out.
But a large number of UP police personnel stayed put around Chingrawathi police post, and along the Bulandshahr-Garhmukteshwar highway.
"Yes the security has been lowered but the residents are still terrified," Chingrawathi village head Ajay Kumar told PTI.
"Several people have left fearing their names would be dragged in the case. There are 50 to 60 unidentified persons in the FIR and that is the cause of worry for the people here," he said.
No students turned up for classes at the government primary and junior secondary schools outside Chingrawathi village Wednesday, teachers said.
The wife and sister-in-law of Rajkumar Chaudhary, a former Mahaw village head and one of the 27 named accused in the FIR, alleged vandalism and assault by the police.
The carcasses were found on his fields and he and some others from the village are absconding.
The villagers claimed people that the Bajrang Dal came to the spot from outside and insisted on taking the carcasses to the police post. But the police visited their village, they said.
"Around 1 am on December 4, 14-15 policemen forcibly entered our house and vandalised everything. There was no woman police official with them," Chaudhary's sister-in-law Beena Devi said.
His wife Preeti claimed the police damaged their car, broke windows of the house and assaulted her.
"One of the policeman wearing a black jacket hurled abuses at me. One of them hit me on my right leg with a baton and the skin on that part has turned black around my knee," she claimed.
Priyanka, 24, whose husband Jitendra Malik has been named in the FIR, also accused the police of assaulting her.
"I was at home with my father-in-law and three-month-old baby when the police came to our house. They assaulted me so badly that my hand got fractured and one ear also got badly injured," she told PTI over the phone from a hospital in Meerut.
People in Naya Bans where seven of the accused in the cow slaughter case live, according to the FIR, said there is tension in the village.
Two of the accused in the case are minors, aged 11 and 12, while one, Sarfuddin, is claimed to have been wrongly named in the FIR.
The local people claim another man, Sudaif Chaudhary, said to be a resident of the village, doesn't exist.
Absconding main accused, Yogesh Raj, uploads his statement on social media. Claims he or other Bajrang Dal activists, had nothing to do with the violence in the aftermath of the protests. #BulandshahrViolence pic.twitter.com/RrnFRLNUQ1
— Piyush Rai (@PiyushRaiTOI) December 5, 2018
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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