On November 8, during his visit to Kairana, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met some of the families who had migrated from here.
In the year 2016, BJP MP from Kairana Hukum Singh had released a list of 346 families claiming that people are migrating from here due to criminal terror.
Yogi Adityanath said, “I remember, this pain of Kairana was raised loudly by Babu Hukum Singh ji. Today Babu Hukum Singh ji is no more with us.
The Chief Minister’s latest statement has raised the issue of ‘Hindus are under pressure’ again, at a time when elections in the state are just a few months away and the ruling party is said to be under pressure regarding the farmers’ movement.
- Returning Mittal family statement
Vijay Mittal is a resident of Begumpura in Kairana. He alleges that the Mukeem gang of Kairana had demanded extortion from him, after which he fled to Surat in 2016. According to the people of the merchant union, Vijay Mittal’s family was very prosperous.
Regarding the meeting with the Chief Minister, Vijay Mittal said that, “The Chief Minister came, went with great respect, admiration. We were encouraged by the people to carry forward your business without fear, fearlessly. Administration is with you in every way.” Yes, the government is with you. There is nothing to worry about.”
‘Everybody knows about extortion. If you have life, you have the world. I lived in Surat for four years. It has been almost two and a half years since I returned. When we felt that we are safe, the administration is active, there is no problem, then we returned. There were four or five families with whom these serious incidents happened, now there is relief. Two of those three families have come back. A family is probably still out there. I do not have much information about how many people have returned, but a large number of people have come back to their homes. We are completely safe now.
- ‘Murdered, yet did not leave Kairana’
On 16 August 2014, Vinod Singhal, brother of Varun Singhal, was shot dead in broad daylight. Recalling that incident, Varun says, “We have a grocery shop in Kairana’s market, where the miscreants had gunned down our brother.”
After the brother’s murder, Varun Singhal is provided with a gun-wielding security guard who is always with him. Why didn’t Varun Singhal’s family migrate like the others? On this question, Varun says, “We have lost everything. Man flees out of fear, isn’t it? We didn’t have anything left.”
Varun Singhal’s family was also included in the families that the Chief Minister met.
Varun says, “He assured us that we will be given security and will also get financial assistance. At the time of the incident too many leaders had come, SP people had also come, they had assured jobs but nothing was received in seven years. ,
He had his own reasons for not fleeing. Varun says, “We also thought about exodus, tried to stay outside for two-three years, but I am alone, could not run a family by living outside. We had planned but the situation became such that we could not do that. I was very young at that time. Then we thought that if something happens, we will die here, whatever happens will be seen.
- Remembering Kairana in elections
In 2016, when the entire matter was discussed from Hukum Singh’s list, many such cases came to the notice of the media in which people had migrated to the nearby big cities in search of work. But seeing the strong farmers’ movement in western Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi government has again started scraping the wounds of the Muzaffarnagar riots. The Chief Minister again met Kureda and Vijay Mittal, Singhal family and two more families on the issue of Kairana.
Talking to the media after this meeting, he said, “I have sought their report from the district administration. Action has been taken against many culprits, the government will also give some compensation to the people so that they can again carry forward their business and economic activities. It is an obligation that I meet every victim, and if the victim is a Hindu, it is not a crime to meet him. That’s why I have come to meet the victims who were tortured during the previous government and forced to flee by professional criminals.
The Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 had damaged the social fabric of nearby areas like Kairana. Refugee camps were set up for the riot victims in Kairana. The Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone of the 250 crore PAC Battalion Complex in Kairana.
On this occasion, he said that 1278 jawans will live here and many generations of those who try to incite riots will forget how riots happen.
Releasing his list, BJP leader Hukum Singh had also said that Muslim families are also included in those who migrated and they will also release their names. It has been almost five years but the list of exodus of Muslim families has not come out yet.
At the same time, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who reached Muzaffarnagar on November 11 on the issue of migration, targeted Yogi Adityanath and said, “The Chief Minister says that the migration has happened and the truth is that if there was no migration of the Chief Minister from Uttarakhand, then we would have had 5 years. Not bad.”
- Official figure of families who migrated?
Vipul Kumar Jain, president of Kairana’s Traders Board, says that even after five years of big political claims of exodus, no official data is available about it yet.
According to him, the reason for the lack of data is not administrative negligence, but because of the mentality of the common people to hide the migration.
Vipul Kumar Jain says, “There is a stigma to migrate, so those who went out and then came back. They are not ready to say anything about it. There is a sense of shame in such people but 40 to 50 people come back.” have come.”
But they could not present any credible evidence in support of their claim about the return of 40-50 people, nor could they tell complete information about these people.
However, they consider employment as a major reason for this migration. He told, “Kairana is adjacent to Haryana and often people, especially the youth, go out in search of employment. In the morning, there will be a queue of people going out at the Kandhla bus stand. There is talk of non-availability of employment at the local level here. Shows.”
But the question remains that if a lot of people have returned, why did the Chief Minister meet only four families?
When Yogi Adityanath met the families who had returned to Kairana, Suresh Rana, MLA from Thana Bhawan assembly seat, was also present with him. Rana is also the sugarcane minister in the Yogi Adityanath government and is considered a strong leader of western Uttar Pradesh.
BBC asked Suresh Rana that there was talk of 346 people in Hukum Singh’s list and there is still talk of 40-50 people returning but why did the Chief Minister meet only four families?
In response, Rana said, “It is not about 346 or 500. It’s a matter of thought. The idea that this is known to all, pros and cons, everyone knows how people migrated here, and why. There was a goondaraj of the Samajwadi Party, there was an atmosphere of complete orgy, people had fled due to it. If someone comes back after fleeing and the Chief Minister meets him, I think it is a respect for the sentiments of all those who came back. The subject is not of numbers, it is of feeling. People have realized that there is peace here. Here peace has been established. Here the rule of law has been established.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Sunil Sajan on the allegation that hooliganism was at its peak in Kairana during the Samajwadi Party regime, says, “If hooliganism had happened, the law would have done its job, whoever committed the hooliganism, the law would have worked the same for all.” Will happen. BJP does very good propaganda. With the same propaganda, they want to contest again. Uttar Pradesh has become number one in the case of murder in police custody during the BJP rule, someone is hitting anyone, that The BJP is talking about law and order in the state.”
- How is RLD’s political grip on Kairana?
In the year 2018, after the death of BJP’s Kairana MP Hukum Singh, RLD and Samajwadi Party’s joint candidate Tabassum Hasan defeated Hukum Singh’s daughter Mriganka in the by-election by a margin of 4.80 lakh votes. But in 2019, she lost the election to BJP’s candidate Pradeep Chaudhary. Despite this, the RLD has a good hold on the politics of Kairana and it is believed that in this election, it will also benefit from its alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
Party’s national spokesperson Islam Chaudhary says that there has never been a riot in the history of Kairana. There Hindus and Muslims have lived together. Till date no one has told them that we have migrated. They have come by themselves because they want to polarize. They are terrified of the strength of the Lok Dal in western Uttar Pradesh.
Islam Chaudhary says that “When Hukum Singh raised the issue of exodus, there was no mention of any religion in his statement, or whose hand was there. Sometimes there are hooliganism in some governments, they got punished. We also want that there should be no hooliganism, no matter which government is there.
He asks that if the migration happened on such a large scale and under pressure, then why the trial was not done, why were the escapees not punished? They do not have any issue and they want Hindu Muslim polarization to happen till the elections.
- How many cases are there in which compensation and assistance will be given?
The BBC tried to know from Shamli DM Jasjit Kaur whether the administration has the figures of people killed in the exodus and hooliganism. On this, he said, “The Chief Minister has said that such people should be identified who have gone from here in the last few years due to various reasons. And if there is any problem in their homes for which they can be given assistance, such Have asked to make a list of people. We will do the work of making a list at the police station level and then try to verify it. Right now I have been asked to make only the list and according to the instructions that will come from the CM office, All possible help will be provided to the families.”
But the matter is of 2016 and the claim of migration is very old, so why no list has been prepared yet? In response to this question, DM Jasjit Kaur said, “There are two families whose family members were murdered in the market. Some of them have members who had fled. Some of them settled in Muzaffarnagar. . These people are marked. Because this is an old case, I don’t have any such list. That’s why we have to do the work of making it afresh once and those that are genuine cases will have to be identified.”
There may not be any data regarding the exodus of people from Kairana, but at present the name of Kairana exodus has started being used once again in the elections and if those who keep an eye on the politics of Uttar Pradesh, it will increase further in the coming days. Will happen.
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