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Satya Pal Singh
Satya Pal Singh is a BJP leader and a member of parliament from Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat constituency. He is the former Minister of State for Human Resource Development responsible for Higher Education and Minister of State in the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation. He previously served as the commissioner of police in Mumbai. He is also now the chancellor of Gurukul Kangri University.
Singh was Sangh’s favorite officer since his early days in the police. He was spotted by the Sanghis when as Nagpur Police Commissioner, he started forming Mritunjay clubs mainly of Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad (ABVP) students from college and university campuses ostensibly to aid the Police hunt for terrorists (read Muslims) and, in effect spy on Muslims neighbors and acquaintances. He formed 386 such clubs in Nagpur from 122 senior colleges and 86 junior colleges. The state’s minority commission then questioned its legitimacy and intent.
But what endeared him to Modi and helped his decision to join the BJP as a better career prospect was his role as a member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Gujarat High Court to probe the Ishrat Jehan fake encounter case, which implicated Modi and his Gujarat government. In June 2011, within weeks of being appointed as chairman of that team, also comprising two other members, Mohan Jha and Satish Verma, he quit citing his differences with the other two members, who, as it turned out later, came to the conclusion that it was a fake encounter.
During the Delhi pogrom of February 2020, Singh’s Hindu nationalist supporters attacked Muslim localities with swords, guns, bombs, rods, chains, and stones. The anti-Muslim pogrom that continued until February 27 left at least 53 people dead, mostly Muslims, and injured another 500.
According to a Muslim victim, he saw a man called Chawla take part in the rioting, and while looting a mosque, Chawla dialled Satyapal Singh and connected him to the police officer present.
“SHO sir kept talking to him saying ‘sir sir’. And then he (Chawla) said take all this money from the cupboard to the MP. His (the MP’s) boy will meet you in Baghpat,” the victim said.
In September 2020, Singh made distasteful remarks on the late Australian leprosy worker Graham Staines who and his two minor sons, Timothy and Philip, were burnt alive by Bajrang Dal leader Dara Singh in 1999 in Orissa.
References:
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/in-8-delhi-riots-cases-complaints-naming-bjp-leaders-buried-2266374
https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-police-riots-probe-citizens-letter
https://caravanmagazine.in/crime/testimonies-from-the-delhi-violence
https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/who-satyapal-singh-indias-new-mos-hrd-and-water-resources
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/exmumbai-police-chief-satyapal-joins-bjp/article5645660.ece