SP leader brags he got Durga Shakti Nagpal suspended in 41 minutes

Zee Media Bureau

Greater Noida: In a new turn in the suspension case of Gautam Buddha Nagar Sub-Divisional Magistrate Durga Shakti Nagpal, the chairman of the UP Agro Industrial Corporation Limited, Narendra Bhati, has claimed that it was he who got the IAS officer suspended. Bhati, who enjoys Cabinet minister rank and is Samajwadi Party`s candidate from Gautam Buddha Nagar for the next Lok Sabha elections, is seen boasting in a video that he got Nagpal suspended in "just 41 minutes". The video shows Bhati addressing his supporters in Greater Noida. He says in the video that he called up Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, and within 41 minutes of his calls Durga Nagpal had been suspended. "I spoke to Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav at 10.30 am and at 11 am the suspension order arrived... She behaved so badly and couldn`t last for 40 minutes after that. Within 41 minutes, the order came from Lucknow and she was suspended," the video showed him as saying. Bhati, however, later retracted his statement, claiming he had been misquoted and that it was a conspiracy of opposition parties. The revelation came hours after CM Akhilesh Yadav defended his government`s decision to suspend Nagpal, claiming her action of getting the wall of a religious structure demolished in Kadalpur village on July 27 could have led to communal tensions. "She took steps that had to be punished. The government was correct to remove her," Yadav said, amid a controversy over the exact reason behind Nagpal`s suspension. The IAS officer, days before her suspension, had taken on the sand mining mafia in Gautam Buddha Nagar. The District Magistrate of the district, too, in his report submitted to the state government, has said that Nagpal never gave any orders to demolish the said religious structure`s walls. The DM added in his report that the wall was demolished by the villagers themselves. The report stated Nagpal had told villagers that any construction for a religious structure would require government permission and that villagers should either seek the same or dismantle the wall constructed on state land.