In an apparent bid to pay the UP government in the same coin after it named and shamed anti-CAA protesters by putting up hoardings at important crossings and thoroughfares in Lucknow containing their names and addresses, a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader also put up posters of expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar, who was convicted for rape, and rape accused saffron party leader Chinmayanand.
The posters were put up by SP leader I P Singh late on Thursday night, according to the sources here. They were put up just beside the huge hoardings of 57 anti-CAA protesters.
''Ye hain Pradesh ki betiyan ke apradhi...inse savdhan rahen,'' (they have committed crimes against the girls....the girls should be careful), say the posters, which carried the pictures of Senger and Chinmayanada. ''After all the BJP thinks that criminals do not have right to privacy....I have only followed the path shown by the BJP,'' Singh said.
While Sengar was sentenced to life for raping a minor, Chinmayanand has been accused of sexually exploiting a law student of his college.
Police sources said that the administration managed to remove a few posters after getting the information but several of them were still there. ''We will remove all such posters,'' said a senior police official here.
The hoardings of the anti-CAA protesters have not yet been removed despite their being no stay on the Allahabad high court's directive to do so by the supreme court. The HC has asked the state government to remove all the hoardings by Monday.
Both the HC and the apex court had come down heavily on the UP government for putting up the hoardings. Rights activists also slammed the state government's action. Former UP IPS officer S.R.Darapuri, whose name also appeared in the hoardings, said that he would file a defamation case against the administration.
Darapuri had been arrested by the police for protesting against the CAA. The court, however, granted him bail after the cops failed to produce any evidence linking him with the violence. ''It is unconstitutional....we have not been convicted by the courts...there is no charge sheet against us,'' he said.
As many as 21 people were killed and around one thousand arrested during the anti-CAA protests in the state in December last year.