Senior ips officer takes pledge for early construction of ram mandir
LUCKNOW: A senior IPS officer in Uttar Pradesh on Friday sparkd a controversy after a video clip of him taking pledge for the early construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya went viral on social media.
Surya Kumar Shukla, along with six other people, is seen taking a vow to build the temple in the video. “We Ram bhakts, as part of this programme, take the pledge that a grand Ram Mandir be constructed at the earliest... Jai Sri Ram,” the video showed them saying with one arm raised.
Mr. Shukla is currently serving as Director-General, Home Guards, and the second senior-most IPS in the State, according to the U.P. Police website.
The controversial incident took place during a private function organised in a room of the Public Administration department of Lucknow University on January 28 by the Akhil Bharatiya Samagra Vichar Manch, which claims to be a social organisation.
Though it was a closed-door affair, the title of the seminar indicated that it was held to chalk out a solution to the Ayodhya dispute: Ram Mandir Nirman Samasya Evam Samadhan.
Apart from Mr. Shukla, some Hindutva activists and members of the Muslim wing of the RSS were also present on stage. So was Advocate Hari Shankar Jain, who was in 2014 felicitated by Amit Shah, then U.P. in-charge of BJP, for taking on the Samajwadi Party government for its move to withdraw terror cases. Mr. Jain, a counsel for the Hindu Mahasabha in the Ayodhya dispute, also helps Hindus fight legal cases through his organisation, Hindu Front for Justice.
While the government has sought an explanation from Mr. Shukla, he clarified that his presence at the event was being misinterpreted and the short clip was selectively made to go viral without considering what he said prior to it.
“As a responsible officer, we cannot say or do anything like this. It is being shown as though we are going for a forcible construction of a mandir. This is misinterpretation,” Mr. Shukla told reporters.
Talking about the pledge, Mr. Shukla said the vow was being taken to create an atmosphere of communal harmony and not for the construction of the Ram Mandir.
He said he attended the seminar as it was being held for an intellectual discussion on how to resolve the “Ram Mandir issue peacefully”.
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Ranchi: Temple guard bludgeoned to death during robbery attempt, 3 held
Ranchi (PTI): A 60-year-old security guard of a temple in Ranchi was bludgeoned to death with a stone during a robbery attempt, police said on Saturday.
The incident happened late on Thursday at the Jagannath Temple in the Dhurwa Smart City area, they said.
"Three persons were arrested on Friday for killing the security guard. They confessed to the crime and told police that the victim had identified them. Therefore, in fear of being caught, they killed him by attacking him with a stone on his head," SSP Rakesh Ranjan said.
"Thereafter, they took money from the donation box and fled the scene. Two of them have criminal antecedents," he added.
Ranjan said the investigators recovered Rs 3 lakh in cash that had been robbed, the stone with blood-stained marks, and the iron rod used to break open the lock of the donation box kept there.
An FIR in this regard was lodged at the Dhurwa police station, he said, adding that the accused were sent to judicial custody by a court.
