Mathura clashes: Akhilesh Yadav meets slain cops' families, says incident should not be politicised

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday met the families of the policemen killed in the 2 June Mathura clashes and said that a judicial probe is being conducted. The violent clashes led to 24 deaths, including that of Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi and Santosh Kumar, Station House Officer of the local police station. Defending the Mathura police, Yadav said, the police tried to save lives of women and kids. [caption id=“attachment_2763940” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. File photo. PTI[/caption] Yadav also met the families of the policemen killed in the violence and assured help to them. “A judicial inquiry will get to the bottom of this. This incident should not be politicised. Those who are doing it, I want to remind them such incidents have happened under their watch as well,” he said, reports NDTV. On 3 June, Yadav had admitted that there were some lapses on the part of administration and the intelligence network that led to the incident. “There were some lapses. Police should have gone with full preparation after holding talks, but there was no information that they would be so heavily armed,” Akhilesh had told reporters on the sidelines of a programme in Barabanki. Akhilesh said the so called ‘satyagrahis’ were encroaching upon government land and several rounds of talks were held with them, but they did not vacate the place. He said an inquiry was being conducted by Agra divisional commissioner and warned that those found guilty would not be spared. Massive clash between police and encroachers broke out in Mathura when police tried to evict illegal occupants, believed to be of Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi, from Jawahar Bagh on Allahabad High Court orders. The leader of the cult, Ram Vriksh Yadav,  was also killed in the clashes. With inputs from PTI