Indian graft accuser sent to mental hospital
AFP: Indian graft accuser sent to mental hospital
LUCKNOW, India A senior police official was sent to a mental hospital after making accusations of corruption against top state officials in north India, a government official said Saturday.
Police officer D.D. Misra alleged on Friday that the government of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh was the "most corrupt regime ever," before going on to accuse chief minister Mayawati and top bureaucrats of graft.
"There are many scams in this government," he told the Indian news channel IBN-7. "I hold chief minister Mayawati directly responsible for these scams."
The state government responded by taking Misra by force to a psychiatric facility in the state capital Lucknow, and claimed that the officer was suffering from a mental illness.
Television footage showed Misra being bundled into a car.
State Home Secretary Fateh Bahadur Singh told reporters Saturday that "Misra is apparently suffering from bipolar effective disorder" following "a preliminary diagnosis arrived at by a senior psychiatrist."
Singh added the government would nevertheless conduct a high-level probe into Misra's allegations against the state's top officials.
In his interview, Misra said he had paid a heavy price for refusing to turn a blind eye to graft.
"I was not only humiliated and mentally tortured by my superiors, but was also denied legitimate promotions simply because I refused to sign on the dotted line," he said.
Mayawati, known as the "Dalit Queen" to her followers, is the country's most influential low-caste politician. The populist leader, who brands herself as "a saviour of the poor," has often been criticised for her extravagant expenditure on erecting huge public statues of herself.
Corruption has become a hot-button issue across India, with central and state governments reeling from a series of scandals including the possibly fraudulent sale of telecom licences that cost the country up to $39 billion.
In August, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in support of social activist Anna Hazare and his campaign for a tough new anti-corruption law.
