SP leader's goons terrorise engineer

Irked over his refusal to award a lucrative contract to a Samajwadi Party leader, the politician’s goons allegedly terrorised a senior engineer of the district panchayat department and set his vehicle on fire and damagd his house in UP’s Fatehpur district.

According to reports, over a dozen workers, said to be supporters of SP leader Sanjay Singh Senger, who also runs a contract business, ransacked the house of engineer L N Khare on Thursday night.

They also burnt his vehicle that was parked in the courtyard. The terrified engineer managed to flee from the house and shifted to a safer place, reports said.

The SP leader had reportedly been exerting pressure on the engineer to award a contract worth Rs 13 crore to him or cancel the tender altogether. Khare refused to buckle under pressure and decided to go ahead with the tender process.

“Senger had earlier threatened me with consequences if I went ahead with the tender opening process. He wanted the contract,” Khare said.

A case had been lodged after Khare approached police, and a police picket has been posted at Khare’s house as a precautionary measure, police said.

Senger denied that his supporters were involved in the attack, though he maintained that the tender process should have been cancelled as a new panchayat president was due to be elected in the next few days.

Lawless state

Earlier too, SP leaders and even ministers have been involved in terrorising officials and common people, and breaking the law with impunity.

Recently, Uttar Pradesh minister Raja Ram Pandey’s nephew Vinod Pandey and his supporters and some SP leaders had assaulted a family in Pratapgarh district.

They had fired several rounds in the air to scare them and grab their land. At least a dozen people were injured in the attack.

The kin of UP revenue minister Ambika Chaudhary had also assaulted a health official in Ballia.

UP minister for rehabilitation Vinod Singh was sacked recently after he abducted a chief medical officer in Gonda.

The officer had refused to issue appointment letters to doctors recommended by Singh.