Retired bureaucrats and police officers have written an open letter expressing alarm at the “complete breakdown of governance and the blatant violation of the rule of law in Uttar Pradesh”, warning that it could result in the destruction of democracy if left unchecked.

The letter has been written under the banner of the Constitutional Conduct, a collective of retired bureaucrats, diplomats and police officers, and has been endorsed by over 200 academics and civil society activists.

It details the excesses committed since 2017 when Yogi Adityanath took office.

“We note with mounting alarm that the present ruling regime in UP has ushered

in a model of governance which swerves further and further away from the values of the Constitution and the rule of law with each passing day. It seems clear that all branches of the administration, including the executive magistrates and the police, have collapsed. We fear that, unless checked now, the damage to the polity and institutions in the state will result in the decay and destruction of democracy itself,” the letter says.

The letter speaks of the use of detentions, criminal charges and property recoveries to suppress dissent, extra-judicial killings as “official hate targeting”, institutionalisation and legitimisation of vigilantism, the bogey of “love jihad”, the misuse of the National Security Act in cow-slaughter cases and the handling of the pandemic which saw countless bodies floating in the Ganga.

The signatories to the open letter have demanded that arbitrary detentions and torture of peaceful protesters be stopped immediately, as also the practice of recovering from them the cost of alleged damage to property.

They have called for an end to encounter killings and vigilantism, using “love jihad” to target minorities, and demanded that the administration beef up health facilities to deal with the pandemic instead of trying to cover up cases by booking those reporting from the ground.