Lucknow: 16 arrested for harassing woman, action taken against eight cops

In the viral video, a group of men is seen playing in knee-deep water and running towards a motorcycle that had a woman riding pillion and splashing water on the duo. The woman is seen in the video falling from the bike as men forcibly stop the vehicle and start pulling it.

The 16 arrested have been identified as Pawan Yadav, Sunil Kumar Bari, Mohammad Arbaz, Viraj Sahu, Arjun Agrihari, Ratan Gupta, Aman Gupta, Anil Kumar, Piyanshu Sharma, Ashish Singh, Vikas Bhandari, Manish Kumar Saroj, Abhishek Tiwari, Krishna Kant Gupta, Jai Kishan, and Abhishek Sahu.

“They have been booked for attempting to outrage the modesty of a woman, rioting and other offences. Three police teams have been formed to identify the accused and arrest them,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Lucknow) Raveena Tyagi said.

In a press statement, Lucknow Police said three senior police officers, including Deputy Commissioner of Police Prabal Pratap Singh, Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Police Amit Kumawat, and Assistant Commissioner of Police Anshu Jain have been removed from their posts.

Five police personnel have also been suspended. They included the SHO of Gomti Nagar police station, Deepak Kumar Pandey; sub-inspector Rishi Vivek, the in-charge of the local police outpost; sub-inspector Kapil Kumar; and constables Dharamveer and Virendra Kumar.

Speaking in the Assembly on the Supplementary Budget tabled by the government, Chief Minister Adityanath targeted the Samajwadi Party on the issue of law and order and said the rate of crime has come down significantly this year as compared to the previous government’s rule.

Referring to the Wednesday’s Gomtinagar incident and the action taken by his administration, Adityanath said: “Kal ki Gomtinagar ki ghatna… Us ghatna mein jawabdehi tay ki hai.. Apradhiyon ki suchi mere paas aayi hai… Pehla apradhi hai Pawan Yadav, dusra apradhi Mohhammad Arbaz… Yeh sadbhavna wale log hain. Hum inke liye Sadbhavna train chalayenge! Inke liye bullet train chalegi. Uski tayari ki ja rahi hai (Yesterday an incident took place in Gomtinagar… The accountability has been fixed… I have received the list of accused… The first accused is Pawan Yadav, and second is Mohammad Arbaz… We will run goodwill train for them! For them, we will run bullet train and preparations are being made for it).”
Claiming that women security is his government’s topmost priority, Adityanath said that he would not allow anyone to play with it. “Koi khilwar karega toh uska khamiyaja bhuktega (Those who will try to play with it will have to bear the consequences),” the
CM said.

“If we don’t shoot these types of criminals, will we garland them? This is a ‘kodh’ (leprosy) of the society and until this is removed, it will be difficult to improve the situation of Uttar Pradesh,” he added.