The mother of slain Hindu Samaj Party president Kamlesh Tiwari has hit out at Yogi Adityanath, alleging she and other family members were forcibly taken to Lucknow to meet the chief minister on Sunday and that his behaviour was “against our expectations”.
“In our society, we don’t move out of our homes for 13 days after a death in the family. But the police mounted pressure on us because they had instructions from him (Adityanath),” Kusuma Ramshri said.
“I didn’t want to go…. His demeanour and behaviour too were against our expectations,” she added without elaborating.
She also complained: “I’m not happy with this meeting because he (Adityanath) is ignoring my demands. I can pick up a sword myself to ensure justice for my son.”
Sources suggested she may have had asked for a murder probe against a BJP leader.
Ramshri was speaking to reporters after returning from Lucknow to hometown Mahmoodabad in Sitapur district, 90km from the state capital.
After she had met Adityanath along with Tiwari’s wife Kiran and son Satyam, 19, at the chief minister’s residence in the morning, the police didn’t let the family talk to the media and whisked them away to Mahmoodabad.
Ramshri questioned the police claim about a group of Surat-based Muslims plotting and executing Tiwari’s murder because of a provocative comment he had made four years ago.
“Some people are trying to lend a communal colour to the murder. My question is, when my son was safe during other parties’ (Samajwadi Party and BSP) rule, why has he been killed under Yogi’s rule?”
Satyam said: “We don’t trust the state agencies. We aren’t sure whether the real culprits have been arrested.”
Ramshri had on Saturday night alleged that BJP politician Shivkumar Gupta, a resident of Thatheri in Sitapur, was behind the murder.
“My family looks after the Ram Janki temple in Mahmoodabad. Gupta wanted to grab the land on which the shrine stands. He used to threaten my son,” she had said.
Gupta, who had joined the BJP from the Samajwadi Party a year ago, denied the allegation. “I had cordial relations with Tiwari. He had invited me recently to one of his programmes in Mahmoodabad. I’m ready to face any investigation.”
A Facebook video dated August 14 that is grabbing eyeballs purportedly shows Tiwari saying “the government is conspiring against me” and expressing fear that it “can put me in jail or kill me in an encounter”.
Ramshri had told reporters on Saturday she was not interested in meeting Adityanath in Lucknow.
A source said the police had got Rajesh Mani Tripathi, vice-president of the Hindu Samaj Party, to persuade Tiwari’s family to get into the car the state government had sent to their home in Mahmoodabad for the Lucknow trip.
Tripathi, who attended the family’s meeting with Adityanath, told reporters the government had accepted the Tiwaris’ demands for a house in Lucknow, a job for Satyam, a financial compensation and police security.
“We have also demanded that Khurshidbagh (the locality in Lucknow where Tiwari lived and was murdered on Friday) be renamed Kamlesh Bagh and a statue of Tiwari be installed there,” Tripathi said. “The meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere and we are satisfied with it.”