A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court (HC) in Uttar Pradesh Wednesday, seeking a CBI probe into all riots in the state in the last 18 months.
The period would cover the regime of the Samajwadi Party (SP) government led by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, that came to power in Uttar Pradesh in March 2012.
Petitioner Nutan Thakur has said that the action and policy of the current government and its officials has been such that it shows a definite tilt towards a particular community.
"In all the riots that took place in last 18 months, the administration shied away from taking action against the culprits of a particular sect," the petitioner has alleged.
The petitioner has said that the actions of the government have resulted in a sense of mistrust in members of the other community, including the petitioner herself.
Thakur narrated that various communal riots, beginning with Mathura June 1, 2012 to Pratapgarh, Bareilly, Lucknow, Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Faizabad, Azamgarh to Meerut and Amethi, pointed to partisan and ineffective action.
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The petitioner has sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation or by the one-man Justice Vishnu Sahay Commission appointed by the Akhilesh Yadav government to probe the Muzaffarnagar riots of Sep 7 that have claimed 38 lives.
The petitioner said a probe by the premier investigative agency, as is underway in the Gujarat riots of 2002, was necessary to get to the bottom of the chain of violent clashes in Uttar Pradesh.