Most fake encounter, custody death & bulldozer victims from PDA: Akhilesh

Lucknow: Expressing concern over the BJP govt creating an entire ecosystem where fake encounters, police custody deaths and bulldozer action are being pushed as a new normal, Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav presented statistics to claim that members of the PDA community were the worst hit by these “extra-judicial acts of the govt”.Akhilesh said through fake encounters the BJP govt was creating an entire criminal ecosystem where the objective was to reset the “mental software” (human psyche) but instead of “upgrading” the thought process, it is left “downgraded and outdated”. “While the police execute encounters, lawyers present exaggerated accounts before the court. Govt uses all the resources in hand to block the truth,” Akhilesh alleged.“Such acts instil a sense of violence and legitimise cold-blooded killing and bring back conservative mentality which thrives on the motto that ‘might is right ‘ and is in complete contrast with democratic values where ‘right is might’,” the former UP CM said. Akhilesh said as a well-crafted conspiracy, the BJP govt was using fake encounters to intimidate the PDA community to fall in line or face the consequences.Coined by Akhilesh himself ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, PDA stands for ‘Pichhde (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities)’.He said in 2024 out of the 207 encounters that were analysed, 125 (accounting for 60%) involved members of the PDA community while only 40 of them involved other sections while relevant details of 42 remaining (21%) were not available. “In complete contrast to this was the demography of officers posted in Special Task Force (STF) – which carried out most of the encounters. Of the 21 officers posted in STF, only 2 were from the PDA,” he said.The SP chief claimed that in 2025, bulldozer action was initiated in 24 cases. Of these, PDA community members were at the receiving end in 22 cases. He said the situation was no different in terms of custodial deaths.‘Encounters take place on caste, religion basis’Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh said in UP encounters were a mode of establishing supremacy of a particular section which is at the helm in the govt over the rest of the population. “Which is why encounters in UP take place keeping in mind the caste and religion of the individual at the receiving end,” he said.Akhilesh said another deplorable aspect was that fake encounters could make BJP supporters happy but the concerning part was that it then turns psychologically violent. “Fake encounters shake people’s confidence over rule of law, and caste and religion based encounters hit the very fundamentals of social justice,” Akhilesh said.