New Delhi:
The Yogi Adityanath government on Thursday sacked Prashant Sharma, the District Magistrate of Amethi, after video of him misbehaving with family of a dead leader went viral. Sharma has been kept on wait list for further posting. Union minister and Amethi MP Smriti Z Irani had also slammed the erring official for insensitive behaviour. Tagging the official Twitter account of Amethi DM, Irani tweeted, “We all are servants of the public and not rulers.” The video clip of Sharma's meeting with the bereaved family of Vijay Kumar Singh alias Sonu Singh had gone viral on the social media, with several netizens expressing anguish over the brazen insensitivity. Sharma was seen pushing a shoving cousin of the dead brick kiln owner. Sonu Singh was son of Shivnayak Singh, who is a senior leader of the ruling BJP in the district.
"What would you have done had you been in our place? Would you have stopped the killing from taking place?," Sharma is heard asking the crowd and when Sunil Singh points out that a Dial 100 police team was in the vicinity and it could have prevented the incident by acting promptly, the DM is seen almost dragging him holding his shirt and asking him if he can make out if anyone in the crowd has a gun. When the people assembled there object to his behaviour, the DM is also seen shouting at them.
He repeatedly tells the crowd that he is the senior-most officer of the district, Sharma is also heard speaking about his problems and the sensitive times in which he and his officers have been working round-the-clock. Interestingly, soon after the video went viral, DM Amethi tweeted another video of one of the family member saying that the viral clip didn’t show the entire truth. Sonu Singh’s cousin was seen saying that the DM gave a patient hearing to all their problems and was of great help.
Sonu Singh was shot dead allegedly over extortion demand of Rs 2 lakh barely 500 metres from the office of the superintendent of police (SP), Amethi at around 7pm on Tuesday. His brother Arpit Kumar Singh has accused two persons Chandrashekhar Kesarwani and Shubham Tiwari and three unidentified persons in the FIR lodged with the Gauriganj police station in this connection.
