Anand Sen Yadav, food processing minister in the Mayawati government has resigned after being accused of abducting and murdering a 22 year old girl and faces a possible CBI inquiry.
Yadav, 31, no stranger to criminal charges (eight cases including those of murder lie against him), accused by Shashi Kumar's family, has been quick to dismiss the charges as ‘political conspiracy by the Samajwadi Party’. He is an MLA from Milkipur in Faizabad and son of MP Mitrasen Yadav who is a suspect in a human trafficking case.
On October 22, Shashi, daughter of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Yogendra Kumar left her home in Inayatnagar of Faizabad to go to the Saket Mahavidyalaya where she was a final year law student. A day later, the family lodged a missing person’s report when she did not return.
After nine days, this was changed to an FIR following preliminary investigation that one Vijay Sen Yadav, a relative and driver of the minister had abducted her. Yadav is also wanted in a number of cases.
According to the police, Yadav was arrested on the evening of October 31 but was released after nothing was found against him. Next morning, he surrendered to Faizabad court in connection with an old murder case and told the police that Shashi might have been murdered. On the basis of his statement a fresh FIR alleging murder was filed by the Faizabad district police.
Yogendra says the minister had been a regular visitor at his home from the time when he was an ordinary party worker, but last December when his daughter came down with Hepatitis C, Yadav's visits became more frequent and led him to promise jobs for her siblings.
“My younger daughter Anita overheard a phone conversation in which Shashi was threatening to expose and strip someone of his minsiterial berth. I believe the person on the other side was Anand Sen,” says Yogendra. He has also accused one Seema Azad of threatening his daughter, apparently at the minsiter's behest.
Proof of relationship
Proof of a relationship between the student and the minister have also come from her diary and letters. Two letters, not addressed to anyone are being examined by the police.
Scrawled in orange glitter over pages from a double lined note book, one says: “Kiya unse pyaar par kar na paye izhar” (Loved him but could not admit) while the other reads: “Tum nahi auron ki tarah jhooti kasme kha lena, jab waqt aaye humko aajma lena” (Don't make false promises like the others, test me whenever the time comes). This is followed by “I love you Anant”.
The case bears resemblance to the Madhumita Shukla murder. Shukla, a Lucknow-based poet was murdered at the behest of Amarmani Tripathi in 2002, because she refused to abort Tripathi’s child.
The police is however still not sure about Yadav’s statement. Announcing the CM’s decision to ask for a CBI inquiry in the case, Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh said the government did not want any allegations of going soft on the minister.
