Kairana families won’t return: ‘Situation unchanged despite official claims’

Officials said nine men, including Muqueem, have been charged with the murders and claimed the situation in Kairana has improved drastically with a crackdown on criminals.

Police in Kairana have killed six alleged criminals and injured 32 others in 42 operations since the BJP government came to power in 2017. The six include four Muqueem Kala gang members: Naushad, Sarvar, Sabir and Akbar. Two other members of the gang, Waseem and Shamil, were killed in Meerut and Muzaffarnagar. Muqueem is lodged in a jail in Haryana’s Yamuna Nagar.

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“Following the police action, Mukeem gang’s network has been finished. Presently, no gang member is active,” claimed Shamli SP Dev Ranjan Verma.

The crackdown has done little to restore the confidence of duo’s families, which relocated to Muzaffarnagar, over 50 km away, in 2015. They have refused to return insisting Kairana remains unsafe.

“In the media, there are reports that the situation in Kairana has changed now following number of encounter (killings of the criminals) but on the ground there is nothing as such. Residents of Kairana still feel unsafe. Businessmen avoid moving out of their houses after 6 pm fearing robbery,” said Garg’s brother, Mukesh.

He claimed gangsters continue to operate in Shamli. Mukesh, who stays with his brother’s family in Muzaffarnagar, said they shifted fearing for their lives. He said they have purchased a house in Muzaffarnagar. “I have started a machine parts business from a rented accommodation in Kotwali area of Muzaffarnagar.’’

Shinghal’s brother, Manoj Kumar, too has moved on and started a hardware business in Muzaffarnagar. “We would sell off our ancestral house and shop in Kairana because there is no point in returning to Shamli.”

A probe was conducted after late former BJP MP Hukum Singh had claimed that 346 Hindu families had been forced to leave Kairana. He had blamed “threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community, and lack of security,” for the displacement. The probe had found the duo’s murder had forced their families to leave Kairana.

The Uttar Pradesh government last month directed the state police chief to issue letters to top police officers to provide information about those who had allegedly migrated before February 28, 2017 due to communal tensions.

“After information from districts comes on exodus with reasons, then we would plan strategy to work on it,” said principal home secretary Arvind Kumar.