MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Voicing concern over the prevailing law and order situation in Maharashtra, after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, it was the turn of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati to demand probe into the lynching of a 25-year-old migrant labor and beating of his three friends from Uttar Pradesh by an unidentified group of Marathi-speaking people while traveling on a suburban local train on Tuesday evening.

All the four youths from eastern UP were traveling from Khopoli to Kurla on the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus-bound train to board the Kushinagar Express from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Kurla to Faizabad.

According to the police, the deceased identified as Dharamdev Rai from Faizabad, and his three friends Veerendra Ramgopal Rai, Satyaprakash Kaushal Rai and Shivkumar Verma, from Gauri Ghat in Gorakhpur, were attacked and badly beaten by a group of about 20 Marathi-speaking youths in the train.

A.K. Sharma, commissioner of the Government Railway Police, told reporters that the four north Indians alighted from the train at Badlapur station, where the seriously injured Dharamdev Rai, was admitted at the Dubey hospital, where he was declared brought dead.

When Mayawati learned of the lynching of the youth from her state, she fired off an angry letter of protest to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for immediate federal intervention into the growing lawlessness in Maharashtra and a probe by the federal Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). She also wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, expressing fear about the life and safety of North Indians in his state.

This prompted the federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil to speak to Deshmukh and Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil, and directing them both to conduct immediate probe into the death of the UP laborer and send a report in that aspect to the federal government.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party (SP) appears keen to approach the center on the issue together with Mayawati. “If the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati agrees, then a joint delegation of UP politicians could meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue,” according to SP General Secretary Amar Singh.

In another development, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has sought a ban on Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) for July communal riots in Indore (Madhya Pradesh), in which eight persons were killed.

“Communal organizations namely, VHP, Dal and their ancillary outfits should not only be banned but also declared illegal,” the NCM said in a report submitted to Prime Minister.

Blaming VHP’s bandh (shutdown) call on Amarnath issue as “root cause of (subsequent) violence” in Jammu and Kashmir, the NCM has recommended a judicial inquiry to fix responsibility on politicians, officials and other key persons behind organizing bandh. — With input from Nilofar Suhrawardy