Sonbhadra carnage: Yogi blames Congress for dispute

Lucknow, July 19 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday blamed the Congress for the land dispute which led to the Sonbhadra carnage in which 10 persons were killed and 24 injured.

In a statement given in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Friday, the Chief Minister said that seeds of dispute were sown in 1955 when the Congress was in power.

"The Congress governments in the past have provided protection to land mafias and the Sonbhadra incident is an example of that," he said.

Adityanath said the report on the probe ordered by him clearly stated that the lingering dispute was responsible for the Wednesday violence.

"The land in question was in the name of Adarsh Society from 1955 to 1989 after which it was transferred to some individuals who sold it to the village head in 2017. During these years, the tribals continued to grow crops on the land even though they did not own it," he said.

The Chief Minister said he had set up committees to probe the truth behind the revenue records and another one to probe the criminal aspect of the incident. He also said that local police and revenue officials had been suspended.

Even as the Chief Minister gave his statement in the Assembly, Samajwadi Party (SP) legislators barged into the well of the house, carrying placards with anti-government slogans. The SP members kept shouting slogans throughout Adityanath's speech and personally targeted him with slogans like "Kanoon vyavastha dhwast hai, Yogi Baba mast hain".

Soon after the Chief Minister ended his statement, Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit adjourned the House.