[Rival political parties in Uttar Pradesh don’t have clean records, either. Bahujan Samaj Party has 36.3 percent of their elected assembly ministers with criminal cases pending against them, Bharatiya Janata Party has 53.2 percent, and Indian National Congress 46.4 percent, the watchdog group told India Ink.]
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| Jitendra Prakash/ReutersSupporters of Samajwadi Party celebrate after the party elected Akhilesh Yadav to be the new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, March 10, 2012. |
When Akhilesh Yadav brought his political party to power
in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, he declared that “no callousness
in law and order will be tolerated” in the notoriously
crime-infested land.
For Mr. Yadav, 38, that would have to begin in his own
backyard.
In the recent state assembly polls, half of the
ministers elected from his Samajwadi Party have criminal cases pending against
them, a quarter of them for serious crimes like rape and murder, according to data pooled
by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a nonpartisan group that works for
electoral reforms in India.
Rival political parties in Uttar Pradesh don’t have
clean records, either. Bahujan Samaj Party has 36.3 percent of their elected
assembly ministers with criminal cases pending against them, Bharatiya Janata
Party has 53.2 percent, and Indian National Congress 46.4 percent, the watchdog
group told India Ink.
From the five states that held assembly elections last
week, Uttar Pradesh had the highest
percentage of ministers with pending criminal cases — 143 out of the
403-member legislative assembly. A fifth of those charged have serious criminal
cases pending against them, according to National Election Watch, a coalition
of hundreds of non-governmental organizations, which analyzed the affidavits of
all 690 assembly legislators in the five states that held elections.
Heading the list
is Dhirendra Pratap Singh of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, with
29 criminal cases pending against him. Sushil Kumar of the same political
party and also in Uttar Pradesh, is facing 14 criminal cases. However, the
ranking changes if only the most serious crimes are analyzed. Topping the list
then is Mitra Sen, of the Samajwadi Party, with 36 criminal cases including 14
cases related to murder, the organization notes.
For Akhilesh Yadav, tasked with heading the country’s
largest state, there’s a grimmer statistic to contend with. The number of
ministers charged with crime is growing.
In the last assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, held in 2007, 35 percent of
assembly legislators had criminal cases pending against them. This year, that
figure has shot up to 47 percent.
[The assailants struck around 11:30 a.m. just as a memorial service for those killed in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province was coming to an end, said Adubl Rahim Ayobi, a member of Parliament from the province. “A few bullets landed in the vicinity of the area where the delegation was sitting,” Mr. Ayobi said in a telephone interview as he made his way back to Kandahar city, the provincial capital. “The security forces repelled the attack and are chasing the insurgents.”]
By Taimoor Shah & Matthew
Rosenberg
PANJWAI, Afghanistan — Militants on Tuesday attacked an Afghan
government delegation visiting the village where an American soldier is accused
of killing 16 people in a door-to-door rampage, puncturing the calm that had
largely prevailed in Afghanistan since the slayings. At least one Afghan
soldier was killed in Tuesday’s attack, which came two days after the shooting
spree that has further stoked the already deep anti-American sentiment in the
country.
The assailants struck around 11:30 a.m. just as a memorial service for
those killed in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province was coming to an end,
said Adubl Rahim Ayobi, a member of Parliament from the province. “A few
bullets landed in the vicinity of the area where the delegation was sitting,”
Mr. Ayobi said in a telephone interview as he made his way back to Kandahar
city, the provincial capital. “The security forces repelled the attack and are
chasing the insurgents.”
The delegation included two of President Hamid Karzai’s brothers,
Qayoom Karzai and Shah Wali Karzai, along with Gen. Shir Muhammad Karami, the
chief of staff of the Afghan Army, and Deputy Interior Ministry Gen. Abdul
Rahman Rahman.
Mr. Ayobi described the attackers as “insurgents,” although there was
no immediate claim of credit from the Taliban.
During the visit on Tuesday, the delegation paid compensation to the
wounded and the families of those killed. Each death was compensated with
100,000 Afghanis, about $2,000 and every person wounded in the attack was given
about $1,000. The American government also plans to pay compensation although
it is not clear how much or when.
The attack belied the Afghan government’s efforts to present itself as
in control of the situation in Kandahar, where anger over Sunday’s killing
is perhaps deepest, and the Taliban — whose roots are in the area — have been
trying to capitalize on the fallout. In fact, as word of the attack on the
delegation spread, the government’s media center in Kandahar initially denied
it had taken place, tweeting: “Media! plz don’t publish things which aren’t
confirmed, there is no combat, there is no fire, all is well. everything calm
and safe.”
Apart from the attack, Afghanistan has largely been calm since
Sunday’s killings, leaving unrealized Western fears of a repeat of the unrest
that spread across the country last month after the burning of
Korans by American soldiers. The only demonstration since Sunday
took place Tuesday morning in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan,
where about a 1,000 people burned an effigy of President Obama and blocked a
highway for about an hour, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to the Jews.”
They demanded an immediate public trial for the American soldier
accused of carrying out the killings and urged President Karzai not to sign a
strategic partnership deal with the United States, which is currently being
negotiated.
The Taliban has made the same demands. In a vitriolic statement on
Tuesday, its third since the killings, it threatened to avenge the killings by
beheading any American soldiers captured by the insurgents. “The Islamic
Emirate mujahedeen, as the true defenders of our oppressed people, warn the
Americans that nothing will content us but avenging every single one of the
martyrs, with the help of God, by killing and beheading your sadist soldier in
every inch of the country,” said the Taliban, which refers to itself as the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The Taliban have on rare occasions captured American and allied
soldiers but most of those seized by the militants have been aid workers and
journalists, including two reporters from The New York Times
The Taliban’s statement also claimed the killings had been carried out
by more than one American soldier, echoing statements made in recent days by
many politicians, religious leaders and ordinary people here.
American officials say the evidence they have so far collected
indicates there was only one gunman and that he will be tried though the
military justice system.
Taimoor
Shah reported from Panjwai, Afghanistan, and Matthew Rosenberg from Kabul.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.
