A young man has been arrested on the charge of pistol-whipping a booth-level officer, amid reports that people suspicious of the opacity of the SIR process have been taking out their frustration on these foot soldiers.
Faiz Mohammad allegedly pointed a pistol at BLO Sharda Prasad Pandey and hit him with its butt during a confrontation at the Primary School at Kandhai, Pratapgarh district, 160km south of Lucknow.
Pandey’s police complaint, lodged on Friday, says Faiz attacked him because his mother’s name was missing from the voter list and no enumeration form had been generated for her.
“We arrested Faiz from Bhatan Basti area on Friday evening and recovered four crude bombs from his possession,” local police sub-inspector Amit Singh said.
A cousin of Faiz denied the young man was carrying a pistol and accused the police of planting "four firecrackers" on him and claiming they were bombs.
He said Faiz had merely "shouted at the BLO and used some abusive words but didn’t assault anybody physically".
"Hundreds of voters from our area are missing from the voter list, and the BLOs are therefore not handing them enumeration forms," the cousin said.
"The BLOs are not in a position to give us satisfactory replies. They can raise this issue with their seniors instead of defending the SIR, which looks like an exercise to remove the names of many genuine voters."
Three BLOs — Sabhya Tiwari, Ashutosh Shukla and Ravindra Singh — had earlier alleged assault by two youths, Imtiyaz Ali and Mohammad Zeeshan, in the Shivgarh area of Pratapgarh on November 25.
Imtiyaz and Zeeshan had claimed that the names of their family members had been deliberately omitted from the voters’ list and their enumeration forms had not been generated.
Vinay Prabhakar Sahani, circle officer for the area, said: “The police have arrested Imtiyaz but Zeeshan is in hiding. They obstructed the SIR process, destroyed important papers and attacked the BLOs on duty.”
A relative of Imtiyaz said: “He didn’t attack anybody; he was arguing with the BLO because enumeration forms were unavailable for most of his family members. He feared they would not make it to the post-SIR voters’ list.”
Samajwadi Party and Socialist Party (India) leaders have asked the Election Commission to extend the SIR timetable so that all the disputes can be heard and the deletion of genuine voters’ names averted.
"There was no reason for such a hurry in completing the SIR when there’s still time left before the panchayat elections," Samajwadi president Akhilesh Yadav said.
Panchayat elections are scheduled for April and May next year in Uttar Pradesh.