| Uttar Pradesh |
By Biplob Ghosal
Aarushi murder case
The sensational murder of 14-year-old Arushi and her domestic help Hemraj in May remains perhaps the biggest murder mystery of 2008. The case raged an outcry not only in Uttar Pradesh but also throughout the country.
Aarushi Talwar, daughter of a dentist couple was found dead with her throat slit in the bedroom of her flat in Jal Vayu Vihar. The 14 year-old Aarushi and servant Hemraj were murdered on the night of May 15. The main suspect was Dr Rajesh Talwar, Aarushi`s father. This infamous father and daughter episode lead the whole nation to a state of remorse.
However, CBI investigating the case could not produce any evidence against Rajesh Talwar hence was later released. The case is still a mystery.
Krishna and Raj Kumar, the other two suspects in the Aarushi murder case, were granted bail after the CBI failed to file a chargesheet. Another accused Vijay Mandal, was released on bail from the Noida jail for lack of evidence.
Cong-BSP scuffle
Political tremors turning friends into foes, terror trails and a murder mystery lost in
labyrinthine bylanes of investigation, Uttar Pradesh had its own share of turbulences this year.
In the political wing the scuffle between Congress and the ruling BSP government continued. The railway coach factory project of the United Progressive Alliance was the bone of contention. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in the state had withdrawn 400 acres land it had allotted for the proposed factory- Sonia Gandhi’s brainchild- which was slated to come up on 1,200 acres.
In October this year, the UP government cancelled the allotment of the land to the central government which challenged this decision. On October 13, a court passed an interim order to maintain status-quo on the land.
Later on December 17 the Allahabad High Court permitted the Centre to go ahead with the project.
A terror attack at CRPF camp in Rampur on the very first day, saw Chief Minister Mayawati locking horns with the Congress and Nehru-Gandhi
family. The Congress in turn found a friend in Samajwadi Party.
With Mayawati, backed by Left, eyeing the PrimeMinister`s office and Congress struggling to find its feet in the politically crucial state, UP virtually became a battle
turf with the BSP leader targeting scion of Gandhi family Rahul Gandhi after his visit to a few Dalit families.
Terror acts
The state figured prominently on the hit list of the terrorists. The year started with the terror attack at CRPF camp in Rampur in which seven jawans and two civilians were
killed on the New Year day.
Links of Abu Bashar, accused of Gujarat serial blasts, were traced to Sanjarpur village in Azamgarh district. Two suspected militants involved in Delhi serial Blasts who were
killed in Batla house encounter in New Delhi were also traced to Sanjarpur, which led the district to be branded as "terror nursery" by the media.
The focus of the security forces on Sanjarpur evoked a sharp reaction from minority outfits, which demanded a judicial inquiry into all the arrests and encounters and
accused the security agencies of targeting innocents in the name of terrorism.
Recent Mumbai terror strikes in November too had UP links. Suspecting involvement of two persons arrested in connection with CRPF camp attack, Maharashtra ATS took Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin on remand to Mumbai for further investigation.
In the sensational Malegaon blast probe too, the terror trail stretched into UP as Maharashtra police picked up Dayanand Pandey alias Amritanand from Kanpur on November 13 for his alleged involvement in the case.
Pandey`s arrest triggered a controversy as alleged involvement of Hindu extremists surfaced during investigations. The man arrested by Maharashtra ATS headed a
"peeth" in Jammu and Kashmir.
CEO lynched in Gr Noida
National Capital Region (NCR) hogged the limelight for all the wrong reasons. While police fired on farmers demanding better compensation for their acquired land in Greater Nodia in October, labour unrest over alleged retrenchment led to lynching of an Italian company - Graziano`s chief executive officer L K Chaudhary in Noida.
Litigations involving policy decisions continued to trouble the state government, as many of them including construction of memorials and cancellation of recruitment of policemen were challenged in the courts.
As the year closed, a tragic bus blaze killed 63 pilgrims returning from Jai Gurudev Ashram in Mathura, highlighted the shortcomings of the state`s rickety transport
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