Nine-member BJP team reaches Kairana to probe into alleged exodus of Hindu families

NEW DELHI: A nine-member probe team of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday reached Kairana to probe into alleged exodus of Hindu families from the city. The team is headed by Shahjahanpur MLA and leader of BJP in UP assembly Suresh Khanna. The probe panel includes, Aligarh MP Satish Gautam, Baghpat MP Satyapal Singh, Aonla MP Dharmendra Kumar Kashyap, Bulandshahr MP Bhola Singh, Saharanpur MP Raghav Lakhan Pal, Gorakhpur MLA Radha Mohandas and former UP DGP Brij Lal. Earlier, Union minister Shripad Naik had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keeping an eye on the incident of 'migration' of majority community from Kairana and a three-member team of Union ministers will be sent there for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation. "The prime minister is keeping an eye on the Kairana incident...a three-member team of Union ministers will soon go there to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation," Naik, had said. Terming the incidents at Kairana and Mathura as serious, he said they prove that law-and-order situation in Uttar Pradesh is dismal. He said monetary help extended by the state government to the families of the two policemen who lost their lives in Mathura was an eyewash. Last week, the BJP MP Hukum Singh had released a list of 346 families who had allegedly fled the Kairana block in Shamli district of western Uttar Pradesh because of "oppression by a section of extortionists and criminals". On Wednesday, he suggested that more lists were likely to come out. The "exodus" issue was taken up in a big way at the BJP's two-day national executive meet in Allahabad that ended yesterday. BJP president Amit Shah had indicated in his speech that his party would anchor its 2017 Uttar Pradesh election campaign on this controversy. Singh, criticised for including on the list names of families that had not left Kairana, had said yesterday there could be errors in his first list. "My party workers gave me the list. Maybe it has mistakes. It is the local administration's duty to check its authenticity," he said. Today, he added: "Earlier, I had released the first list of those who had migrated from Kairana block. Today, my party workers from Kandhla block in my constituency gave me the second list of families who have migrated to other places from there." The errors in Singh's first list have irked some people like Kiran Pal Jatav. Singh had claimed that fearing the "criminals of a particular community, Kiran Pal, son of Piru Jatav" had run away from Kairana. But Piru said over phone from Kairana that he was the father-in-law of Kiran Pal. "My son-in-law has gone to Ghaziabad with his family to work as a labourer and get better wages," Piru said. The police, during a door-to-door verification yesterday, found that Prem Chandra, who is also on Singh's first list, had died five years ago. His three children live and work in Kairana. Brajpal Kashyap, also on the first list, has never left Kairana, where he has been running a tea stall for 15 years. Government sources said a report by Shamli DM Sujeet Kumar mentioned that four persons on Singh's first list had died of natural causes years ago, 68 people had left the place over 10 years ago and 34 families had left over 15 years ago. "Only nine families had left in fear of the criminals. The rest migrated to other places in search of better income or livelihood," the report said. When reporters approached the DM with the second list, he said: "We will cross-check this list also. But migration to other places is a normal trend."