The Uttar Pradesh Police is in contact with different intelligence agencies in connection with a number of MLAs receiving threatening messages, and the matter would be worked out soon, DGP O P Singh said today.
Over 22 state legislators, most of them from the ruling BJP, have got texts or WhatsApp messages, asking them to pay Rs 10 lakh or their families will be eliminated.
"The state police is in contact with different intelligence agencies, besides the Intelligence Bureau, and work is in progress in this regard... The case will be worked out soon," the Uttar Pradesh director general of police (DGP) told reporters in Bareilly.
"There is no need to panic... It (threat call) is not just to the state's MLAs, but also to eminent personalities elsewhere, who are not public representatives. They, too, are getting such messages," Singh said.
The state police has issued an advisory, asking people not to be scared. The issue could be the handiwork of "professional hackers", who are using a proxy server to create panic, it said.
Yesterday, DIG (Law and Order) Pravin Kumar had said, "A detailed inquiry has already started and state authorities are in touch with central agencies for assistance."
"We have got some vital clues," the DIG had said.
He had said "some more time" would be required to arrive at the logical conclusion and that whosoever was involved would be arrested.
"This has happened mostly in Lucknow and some other districts of Uttar Pradesh," Kumar had said.
The state police has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the threatening messages from someone who seemed to be claiming a past link with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
In all the messages, the sender has given out his name as Ali Budesh Bhai from Dubai, a reference to a gangster once linked to the now Pakistan-based Ibrahim.
The SIT was set up on the directions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who took strong note of the threats.
The MLAs who got the messages include Veer Vikram Singh (Meeranpur Katra in Shahjahanpur), Manvendra Singh (Dadraul in Shahjahanpur), Prem Prakash Pandey (Tarabganj in Gonda), Vinay Kumar Dwivedi (Mehnam in Gonda), Vinod Katiyar (Bhognipur in Kanpur), Shahshank Trivedi (Mahauli in Sitapur) and Anita Rajput (Debai in Bulandshahr), Dhirendra Bahadur Singh (Sareni-Raebareli).
The opposition has attacked the Adityanath government over the messages, with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav claiming, "No one is secure in the present regime. The MLAs are being threatened of dire consequences. There is no law and order in the state."
The Congress, too, has levelled a similar charge, saying the threats to legislators "expose the tall claims of the BJP government.
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