New Delhi, February 02: The Centre on Wednesday hit back at the Uttar Pradesh government for the violence and chaos that occurred during an ITBP recruitment camp at Bareilly resulting in the death of 19 aspirants, saying there were “only a handful” of state policemen to maintain law and order.
“Despite the clear request and advance intimation by the Commandant (ITBP), it is learnt that only a handful of police personnel were deployed around the ITBP campus. When candidates started converging at the ITBP camp for registration, initially the process went on smoothly.
“However, as the crowd swelled, the Additional Director General (Headquarters) at the Directorate General ITBP, who was monitoring the process, even talked to the District Magistrate and the ADG (Law and Order) UP requesting them to augment the arrangements,” the Home Ministry said in a statement here.
The Ministry also produced four documents, submitted by the ITBP to it, of official communication between local ITBP officials and the state administration.
The Uttar Pradesh government yesterday had claimed that ITBP and the Centre did not coordinate with the state on the recruitment camp. It also blamed alleged “mismanagement” of ITBP for the “chaos”.
“The incident was unfortunate, but the ITBP did not inform the Bareilly administration that applications have been invited from 11 states,” a UP government spokesman had said in Lucknow, adding the ITBP should have given a special information in this regard.
Home Minister P Chidambaram had also said yesterday that the state police was obliged to provide security to any kind of recruitment camp and such a programme is not held without the knowledge of the state police.
“These were done with the full knowledge and consent of state police,” he had said in New Delhi.
The UP government had termed Chidambaram’s statement as “untrue” and “far from facts”.
The Home ministry today said that it has been alleged in media that the ITBP had not informed the District Magistrate, Bareilly about the recruitment rally for which over one lakh persons turned up for 416 vacancies and some returning candidates were killed and injured in a rail accident.
“In this regard, ITBP has informed that to ensure adequate arrangements for the rally, the local Commandant, ITBP wrote a letter to the District Magistrate with a copy to the DIG, Bareilly district on January 17 mentioning in detail the process of recruitment that would be followed along with the timings and estimated number of candidates, thereby requesting for adequate arrangements to be made.
“A similar letter was issued by the local Commandant, ITBP to the District Magistrate requesting for the services of one medical officer, one para-medic along with medicines and one ambulance to handle any medical emergencies during the rally,” the statement said.
—PTI—-