LUCKNOW: A video clip purportedly showing IAS officer Rinku Singh Rahi doing sit-ups, holding his ears amid a protest by lawyers in Shahjahanpur, went viral on social media on July 29, sparking quite a buzz in administrative and legal circles in Uttar Pradesh. The incident took place after Rahi, the 2022-batch IAS officer, recently appointed as the SDM of Puwayan tehsil in Shahjahanpur district, spotted a lawyer’s clerk urinating in the open during an inspection. Offended by the act, the officer allegedly reprimanded the clerk and made him do sit-ups, triggering a backlash from the lawyers who gathered in protest and allegedly forced Rahi to do the same. In fact, the IAS officer had joined as SDM at 2 pm on July 29 and had set on an inspection immediately. The protesting lawyers said the man (clerk) had no choice but to relieve himself in the open due to the deplorable condition of the tehsil’s public toilets. Meanwhile, the SDM approached the lawyers and said that even if protests and demonstrations are allowed, the sound from loudspeakers should not reach the office. During the interaction, the lawyers raised the issue of the clerk being made to do sit-ups and questioned: “If the toilets are in such a filthy condition, where are the lawyers and clerks supposed to go?” As tensions rose, SDM Rahi acknowledged the fault of the administration and took an extraordinary step. In front of the protesting lawyers and staff, he held his ears and performed five sit-ups, declaring: “I, too, will not urinate in the open. I must follow the rules myself.” He admitted that the poor state of sanitation in the tehsil was a failure on his part as an administrator. Despite attempts made by the lawyers to stop him, Rahi went ahead with the ‘self-imposed punishment’. He assured the gathering that immediate steps would be taken to clean and repair the toilets, and pledged to improve overall hygiene on the tehsil premises. Rinku Singh Rahi served as a PCS officer before becoming IAS officer in 2022. His journey took a dramatic turn in 2009 during the Mayawati regime when, as a district social welfare officer in Muzaffarnagar, he exposed a Rs 100-crore scholarship scam. This led to an attack on him by local gangsters, who shot him seven times, leaving him with a disfigured face, a damaged jaw and blindness in one eye. Rahi, hailing from Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, continued his fight against corruption, filing RTI applications. He cleared the UPSC exam in 2022 under the disability quota, securing the 683rd rank at the age of 40.
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