Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh Government’s response and the chain reaction in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, leading to the transfer of the Inspector General of Police and district superintendent of Police from the naxalite infested Balaghat district bordering Chattisgarh after the Additional SP and the concerned police station TI, along with four constables, had already been shunted out for assaulting an RSS district “pracharak” for posting objectionable content on a social networking platform is being dissected and analysed minutely in police and different social circles.

On Sunday, 2 October, the Madhya Pradesh Government issued orders transferring the Balaghat IG D C Sagar and bringing in his place G. Janardan, IG Anti-Naxalite Operations (Police Headquarters, Bhopal) as Balaghat Range IG. Amit Sanghi, till now the Zonal SP Special Branch at Jabalpur has replaced Asit Yadav as district SP. The removal of these officers has come after a protest strike in Balaghat and adjoining Mandla district called by the RSS.

Earlier Additional SP Rajesh Sharma, Town Inspector (TI) Zia ul Haq, sub inspector Anil Ajmaria and a couple of police constables were suspended and charged under different sSections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Action was taken against them after RSS Pracharak Suresh Yadav was allegedly beaten up by them on receiving a complaint from a section of the local people about a certain objectionable comment posted said to have been posted by him on a social media platform.

It has been reported that after receiving the complaint, Additional SP Rajesh Sharma, along with a police team, which included TI Ziaul Haq, went to the local RSS office on Sunday 25 September and brought Yadav to the Police station. According to an available version, the RSS pracharak was beaten up on the way and at one point, when he managed to escape, the Police chased and caught him and brought him to the Police station where he was again thrashed. Yadav was later admitted in a private hospital in Jabalpur for medical care. Police sources have a different take. It is being pointed out in knowledgeable circles that Police had to use force against Yadav when he intimated the police team, tried to rough up the cops and run away.

The suspension of the Additional SP and other cops involved in the Balaghat incident was announced by State Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on September 28 in Gwalior, where the Madhya Pradesh unit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was meeting for its executive meet. On the eve of the BJP meet, national General Secretary of the BJP Kailash Vijavargiya had sent a strong message through a tweet stating that the “beating up of an RSS pracharak in a brutal manner inside his office by the TI and local goondas in the presence of the additional SP is a crime that cannot be pardoned.” Vijayvargiya’s tweet that went viral went on to ask – “the bureaucracy can have such guts under our government???”