Nagpal’s call unjust,won’t reinstate her,says Shivpal

Shivpal,who was speaking at the Samajwadi Party office,stressed that the government will not tolerate any attempt to create communal strife and strict action will be taken against any official.

This is the first time that a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government had spoken on the action taken against Nagpal,which has attracted criticism from the opposition parties. The IAS Officers Association has called for revoking her suspension.

Shivpal denied that Nagpal was suspended due to her tough stand on illegal sand mining. “Mining has nothing to do with her suspension. No mining is done in a radius of 25 km at Kadalpur village. It was done due to her action (of demolishing the wall of mosque),” he clarified.

He stated that the village has a 90 per cent population of Muslims and Nagpal went there after some people gave her false information. She should have tried to sort out the matter through dialogue. It was a conspiracy to create communal discord,the minister said. “The land belonged to the mosque and a small portion belonged to a Gujjar farmer,who had no objection,” he stated.

He also mentioned that the state government was against illegal mining but the story was twisted in Nagpal’s case.

Shivpal also overruled the statement of his cousin and SP general secretary Ramgopal Yadav,who had termed her suspension wrong. “The action has been taken by the CM. Sarkar hai hum. Listen to me and no one else,even claims of officials do not matter on this,” he added.

Nagpal,a 2010 batch IAS officer was suspended on Satuday night by the state government for demolishing the wall of an under-construction mosque in Kadalpur village on grounds of not showing far-sightedness and not following the legal procedure. The action had adversely affected the communal harmony in the area,stated the official press release issued by the state government.