An ambitious self-styled “revolutionary” by the name of Ram Vriksha Yadav who headed the Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagraha (ABVVKS) activists has been on the run since violent clashes between the ABVVKS and Uttar Pradesh police left 24 dead and over 40 wounded, on Thursday night.
According to sources, Ram Vriksha Yadav, who hails from a wealthy family in the Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh, has been known to be close to former Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.
But the story behind the recent incident started with the death of the Mathura-based self-proclaimed spiritual guru Tulsidas Maharaj, also known as “Jai Gurudev”. His assets are estimated at over Rs 12, 000 crore, including land worth Rs 4,000 crore, a school, a petrol pump in Mathura – all in the name of the “Jai Gurudev Trust”.
Also read: Behind the Mathura Violence: ‘Netaji’ Groups and a Vegetarian Baba
How ABVVKS Came to be
A fight for property ensued between three of the guru’s primary disciples – Pankaj Yadav (who used to be Gurudev’s driver), Ram Vriksha Yadav and Umakant Tiwari – soon after his death.
Pankaj, who also has close ties with Mulayam Singh’s younger brother, Shiv Pal Yadav, won the battle for assets and appointed himself as Gurudev’s successor.
Failing the tussle of property and leadership, Ram Vriskha Yadav, formed his own faction which claimed its loyalty to Netaji’s ideologies.
ABVVKS’ demands included cancelling the elections for President and Prime Minister of India, replacing existing currency with ‘Azad Hind Fauj’ currency, and selling diesel at the rate of 60 litres for one rupee and petrol at the rate of 40 litres for one rupee.
Their protest started as a part of a rally that was supposed to start in Madhya Pradesh and terminate in Delhi.
The rallying group was, however, denied permission to march up to the capital, instead, the Mulayam Singh Yadav government allotted them a lush 300-acre park –Jawahar Bagh – in a prominent locality of Mathura for two days to hold their rally in 2014.
Encroaching in Protesting
Much to the dismay of the locals, on the pretext of holding a protest, those two days turned into two years and the rallying group never moved out of the park that falls under the Horticultural Department of the Uttar Pradesh government.
The group of “activists” who sources say were paid to come from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh felled the several fruit bearing trees of Jawahar Bagh and built little shanties for themselves.
Sources told The Quint that the Samajwadi Party government had intended to lease out the plot to Ram Vriksha Yadav for a few decades, who in turn wanted to build an ashram in the disputed land before the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
But before the land could be occupied, a PIL filed by Allahabad High Court directing the local authorities to have the park vacated thwarted all hopes of acquiring the land. The Mathura district administration too then issued a notice to the protesters asking them to vacate the land in April.
Following this, when SHO Santosh Yadav went to Jawahar Bagh to ask the encroachers to vacate the land, he got into an altercation with them. When he came back the second time with SP Mukul Dwivedi and police units from two police stations, they were completely unprepared to face the 3000 strong group who had amassed a huge cache of arms and ammunition.
The “activists” pelted stones and opened fire at the police force killing both the SHO and the SP.
IG (Law and Order) HR Sharma said the encroachers not only used hand grenades, but also opened fire from automatic weapons after taking position at tree tops.
The area was filled with smoke due to the blast of hand grenades and LPG cylinders, following which several huts caught fire, DM Kumar said.
How the group came to possess such a vast amount of weapons, the police hasn’t been able to find out yet. Some 250 of the encroachers have been arrested, while most have run away.
The administration admitted failure of intelligence. The encroachers were allegedly armed with at least 6 rifles, about 200 bullets, and 1000 LPG gas cylinders, among other kinds of arms and ammunition.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has announced a compensation of Rs 20 lakh for each of the slain policemen, adding that strictest action would be taken against the culprits and the guilty would be brought to justice.
Yadav also said that the police should have gone with full preparation, but they had no idea about the arms and ammunition possessed by the encroachers.
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