UP police officer who jailed BJP leaders calls her transfer a reward for good work
Shrestha Thakur, on her Facebook page, said she was happy with the move, though she later took the post down.
Uttar Pradesh police officer Shrestha Thakur, who was transferred to Bahraich a week after she sent five Bharatiya Janata Party supporters to jail for trying to intimidate her, on Sunday said she accepted her transfer as a reward for her good work, reported the Hindustan Times. In a post on Facebook, Thakur had said, “Don’t worry my friends I am happy ... I accept it as a reward for my good work.”
“Wherever a lamp goes, it will spread light…it doesn’t have a fixed address,” she wrote. “You are all invited to Bahraich.” However, she later deleted the post.
Thakur had been transferred on Sunday. While the UP Police maintained that it was a routine transfer, there were reports that 11 Uttar Pradesh MLAs had told Chief Minister Adityanath that their pride had been hurt by her altercation with the BJP leaders.
Thakur had received widespread praise for sticking to her guns when a video of her telling the BJP members off went viral in June. The clip showed her taking a stand against the group of men who were trying to stop the police from producing a local BJP leader, Pramod Lodhi, before a court for assaulting a traffic official who had fined him for not having the right papers for his vehicle.
On June 23, days after Lodhi’s arrest, several BJP activists hit the streets shouting anti-police slogans (“police prashasan murdabad”) outside the district court compound and tried to keep Lodhi from being taken to court.
In the video, Thakur can be seen intervening at this point, saying, “Please go and get written orders from the chief minister that the police have no right to check vehicles...that we can’t do our job.”