The large section of the bureaucracy in Uttar Pradesh is getting increasingly divided on caste lines over the arrest of Indian Administrative Service officer Shashi Bhushan Sushil for allegedly attempting to molest a girl on train on Monday.
At least three groups of IAS and PCS officers held meetings at undisclosed destinations in Lucknow on Tuesday night to discuss the issue amidst strong murmurs that the state government was quietly embarking on its vendetta mission and targeting officers who wielded clout in the Mayawati regime. “We felt that that the officer was being targeted simply because he belongs to a particular caste. The entire episode sounds suspicious — how is it possible that he kept misbehaving with the girl throughout the night and she did not raise an alarm? Besides the haste with which the government acted in sending him to jail and then his suspension was definitely not in proportion with the offence. The same government did not suspend Pradeep Shukla even though he was in jail for three months in the NRHM scam,” said an IAS officer who was present at the meeting.
The PCS lobby that also met on Tuesday insists that action was taken against the officer since he belongs to the Dalit caste and was known to be powerful in the previous regime. The officer, meanwhile, got bail on Wednesday.