After playing hide-and-seek for nearly half the day, Uttar Pradesh principal home secretary Kunwar Fateh Badadur and director general of police Vikram Singh finally came out with an official denial about there being any threat to Varun Gandhi's life, on Wednesday afternoon.
Addressing a joint press conference in Lucknow, the officials also confirmed that Varun's shifting from Pilibhit to Etah district jail was not prompted on account of any threat to his life but in the larger interest of maintaining peace , tranquility and public order in Pilibhit.
Earlier, top officials of the Uttar Pradesh government as well as the Intelligence Bureau had flatly denied any kind of threat to Varun Gandhi, who was currently in prison for his communally charged utterances, that eventually invited provisions of the stringent National Security Act against him.
Dismissing a specific report in a section of the media stating that Varun Gandhi was being targetted by international gangster Chota Rajan, the officials refuted the claim that Varun's shifting from Pilibhit to Etah jail was a consequence of exposure of the "assassination conspiracy."
A top home ministry official had said, "The decision to shift Varun from Pilibhit to Etah was taken in the wake of BJP's threat to observe a "Pilibhit bandh" on Wednesday." According to him, "that had nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of threat perception to his life."
Another key official of the chief minister's secretariat went on to argue, "do you think the administration would have allowed Varun to move about in the open in Pilibhit on March 28 , if at all there was any truth in the much-hyped news report claiming life threat to him."
Asked to comment on the mention about telephonic conversations that led to the arrest of Chota Rajan's ace shooter Rashid Malbari in Mangalore on March 27, the official sought to point out, "the nexus appear to be too far fetched as it was practically impossible for the gangster to make it all the way from Mangalore to Pilibhit within a span of less than 12 hours."
Malbari was stated to have been arrested by the Karnataka police from Mangalore on the night of March 27, while Varun's trip to Pilibhit was proposed for March 28 morning.
According to a senior IB official, "all we had received were inputs about threat to important leaders (no names) during the elections following which we had alerted all concerned state governments ; there was nothing in particular on Varun Gandhi,"
His version was corroborated by an senior UP cop, who sought to point out, "beefing up Varun's security on March 28 was part of preventive steps to avert any untoward incident during the course of his courting arrest."
He further sought to point out, "if his shifting had been prompted on account of threat to his life, then we would have not gone for Etah as it was not the safest place."
"Etah jail is ideally suited for custody of those who need to be isolated as it is neither on any key rail route nor conveniently accessible on other counts", he said. "And let me tell you, if it the shifting were to be carried out purely as a part of the measures to enhance his personal security , Barielly jail would have been far more secure as also far more conveniently accessible as it was barely 58 Km away from Pilibhit", he added.
