Uttarakhand Police booked Uttar Pradesh MLA Aman Mani Tripathi and his 11 supporters for lockdown violation in the hill state late on Sunday evening. The political leader from neighboring state entered Uttarakhand with three SUVs and claiming to perform a religious ritual for the deceased father of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at Badrinath and Kedarnath, managed to reach Karanprayag in district Chamoli.
The Independent MLA from Nautanwa, Tripathi produced a letter from a top Uttarakhand bureaucrat to move in the hills.
When police stopped Tripathi and his men at Gauchar in Chamoli he misbehaved with the cops.
But, after proceeding a little further till Karanprayag, the UP leader and his men were provided crash course of lockdown norms by SDM Vaibhav Gupta.
The norms and tough stand of Karanprayag SDM forced the legislator to return.
Uttarakhand police arrested Tripathi at Byasi (Tehri) on Sunday night.
He was booked under section 188 of the IPC and other sections of the disaster management act.
The Uttarakhand government has issued strict orders and only routine prayer is being conducted at Kedarnath- no movement of tourist are allowed in the two pilgrimage centre.
Despite this Amanmani Tripathi crossed many barriers and reached Karanprayag.
It appears he was symbolically arrested and later released without any major trouble in wee hours. Everybody is questioning the role of a senior officer of the Uttarakhand government in providing the approval/official permission.
Social worker Ravinder Jugran has asked Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to act against the guilty officers involved in providing official permit to the political leader.
He even questioned the urgency of releasing the leader without keeping him and his men in 14 day quarantine.
Expressing similar sentiments, Lucknow based activist Dr Nutan Thakur has sought action against Additional Chief Secretary to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Om Prakash for providing permission to the MLA.