In a sudden late night move, Uttar Pradesh state director general of police A C Sharma was given the marching orders on Friday.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday removed senior police official Arun Kumar, who oversaw the situation in Muzaffarnagar after the recent communal riots, from the post of Additional Director General in-charge of law and order.
A series of communal clashes rocked a few villages of Western Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, killing nine persons including one IBN-7 news channel journalist and a local photographer hired by the Muzaffarnagar police.
"The kind of incident which happened yesterday (Wednesday) can definitely be attributed to lapses on part of the police due to which some people dared to do this (violence). We will take strong action," Devraj Nagar, state Director General of Police told media persons.
The New Year in Uttar Pradesh dawns the advent of the state's first Muslim director general of police, with chief minister Akhilesh Yadav naming 1978 batch Indian Police Service officer Rizwan Ahmed as the new police chief.
A large number of Muslims have been evacuated by security forces to a relief camp, while some have themselves moved out of their native villages fearing the onslaught of Hindu Jats in the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. Two days of unabated communal violence claimed 30 lives.
The army on Sunday staged a flag march in riot-hit areas of Muzaffarnagar district where the toll in clashes between members of two communities has risen to 12.
A one-man judicial commission headed by former high court judge Vishnu Sahai is understood to have indicted government officials more than politicians for the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and four adjoining districts in 2013.
Sharat Pradhan secures exclusive access to the Justice Vishnu Sahai report and discovers it blames two BJP MLAs, a former BSP MP and his cohorts, local intelligence officials and the media for the horrific Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, but attributes no blame to the Samajwadi Party government in the state.
