Now, Akhilesh 'punishes' victims

A day after sacking the state minister, who had kidnapped a medical officer and terrorized many other district officials, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday seemed to ‘succumb’ to the pressure and ‘punished’ the victims by shunting them out of the district and ordering a probe against them though no FIR was registered against the erring outgoing minister.

The government shunted the district magistrate, police chief, chief medical officer and the chief development officer of Gonda district and kept them on the waiting list. It also ordered a probe against them, according to the official sources.

“The inquiry will ascertain whether the officials did not discharge their duty in a lawful manner,” sources said adding that the commissioner of Lucknow had been entrusted with the inquiry. The government also put on hold the appointment of the doctors, which was at the root of the problems, according to the officials.

UP health minister Ahmed Hasan also seemed to defend the outgoing minister. “I know how honest the medical officers are...I shall make some startling disclosures about the role of the doctors in the prevailing corruption in the health department,” Hasan said. On Monday, the outgoing minister of state for revenue and rehabilitation Vindo Singh alias Pandit Singh, had allegedly assaulted and abducted the CMO  and two clerks of the health department after the latter refused to make appointments of doctors on his recommendations.

Although Singh was sacked, he had alleged that there was a nexus between the officials and the CMO and they had conspired to trap him as he had exposed their corrupt practices.

The minister, who was furious over the refusal of the Gonda district CMO Dr S P Singh to make appointments on his recommendations, barged into the official's house at midnight and abducted him and two other ‘babus’ of the health department in Gonda town, about 200 kilometers from Lucknow, in a bid to force him to cancel the list of the appointees and include the names he had recommended.

The terrified CMO managed to inform the senior officials and was later escorted to the state capital by the additional district magistrate. Singh, who also hails from Gonda district, had given a few names to the CMO for being appointed as doctors on contractual basis in the National Rural Health Scheme (NRHM).

The terrified official, in the meantime, informed the district magistrate and others. The senior officials intervened and had the CMO escorted all the way to safety in the state capital. The district magistrate and the chief development officer are on leave to protest the incident.