A DAY after a video surfaced online purportedly showing IAS officer Rinkoo Singh Rahee doing sit-ups holding his ears during a protest by lawyers in Shahjahanpur district, the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday transferred him to the Board of Revenue in Lucknow.
Forty-three-year-old Rahee’s journey began as a PCS officer who faced a murderous attack in 2009 for his apparent role in exposing corruption while he was posted as Social Welfare Officer in Muzaffarnagar.
Rahee, who survived the attack in which he suffered six bullet injuries, went on to clear the UPSC examination in 2023.
On Monday, Rahee joined his first posting as an IAS officer in Shahjahanpur after having completed his training. He was appointed as the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of the Puwayan tehsil in the district.
Around an hour after taking charge as SDM on Tuesday, Rahee conducted an inspection of the tehsil premises and reportedly found filth, lack of cleanliness and waterlogging. He was dismayed that people were urinating in the open despite the availability of toilets. To sensitise the residents about civic sense, they were reportedly directed to do five sit-ups as a form of public awareness, sources said.
He also took similar disciplinary action against the parents of schoolchildren who were found loitering on the tehsil premises with their wards during school hours without valid reason. To discourage the practice and highlight the importance of regular attendance, he allegedly made the parents do sit-ups as “a form of public awareness”.
He said the intent was to “make them realise the harm they were causing to their children’s education by allowing or encouraging such absenteeism”.
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Later in the day, the IAS officer approached a group of lawyers who were protesting on the tehsil campus over several issues. During the interaction, the lawyers complained about the unclean condition of the premises, the presence of stray animals, waterlogging, and overall administrative neglect. They asked whether he would take action against the officials responsible for the poor state of the tehsil.
Acknowledging the administration’s “shortcomings”, Rahee performed sit-ups while holding his ears in front of the gathering. Although the lawyers urged him to stop, he completed the act as a “symbolic gesture of accountability.”
When contacted on Wednesday, Rahee said: “I took responsibility for the shortcomings of the tehsil and its staff. As a symbolic gesture of accountability, I performed sit-ups in front of lawyers and members of the public.”
Hailing from Aligarh, Rahee, during his stint in Muzaffarnagar, was attacked days after he ordered an inquiry into the allocation of government funds.
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Singh ordered the probe after a preliminary inquiry, during which he reportedly found anomalies in distribution of funds under multiple government schemes, including student scholarship, pension scheme and marriage scheme.
On March 26, 2009, when Rahee was playing badminton, a group of assailants allegedly pumped six bullets into his chest, leaving him with a disfigured face and a damaged jaw. He also lost an eye but survived. A portion of a bullet is still inside his body, he says.
The Muzaffarnagar police then filed a case and arrested the accused.
In February 2021, a court in Muzaffarnagar sentenced four persons, including one who was then an accountant with the Social Welfare Department, to 10 years of imprisonment. However, the court acquitted four others in the case for lack of evidence.
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At the time of this verdict, Rahee was in-charge of a government-run IAS and PCS coaching centre in Hapur.
In 2012, Rahee staged a dharna in Lucknow, demanding a reply to his RTI application seeking details of unused funds by the Social Welfare Department in Muzaffarnagar in 2008–09. He said at the time that Rs 60-70 crore had been allocated, but a “large part remained unaccounted for”. He had asked for details of the unspent amount and the beneficiaries, but claimed that he received “incomplete information”, prompting him to file an appeal.
