Anuj Chaudhary was no ordinary recruit when he joined Uttar Pradesh police in 2012. Having represented India at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the wrestler came into public service with coveted laurels such as the Arjuna award to his name. However, unlike many other athletes, who fade into obscurity in pen-pusher sarkari jobs after they retire from sports, Chaudhary has exploded into the public limelight. As the top police officer of Sambhal, the town that has become Hindutva’s latest battleground in Uttar Pradesh, Chaudhary has acquired the reputation of a larger-than-life cop, one who enjoys the blessings of Chief Minister Adityanath. But Chaudhary does not draw his power from Lucknow alone. On Instagram, where he has over seven lakh followers, he blends machismo and Hindutva, posting workout reels as well as videos of himself worshipping in Sambhal’s temples. The effects of his online muscle-flexing have spilled over into the sensitive ground reality of communally-charged Sambhal, which witnessed deadly violence over a court-ordered archaeological survey of the town’s Mughal-era mosque in November. During both the violence and its aftermath, Muslim residents have felt antagonised by what they see as the police officer’s partisanship. Chaudhary is a deputy superintendent of police. He is posted as a circle officer in Sambhal town, covering four of the district’s busiest police stations. The political patronage that Chaudhary enjoys has long been a feature of the bureaucracy, India’s so-called steel frame. But the wrestler-officer seems to represent two new elements now being added to the mix: social media and Hindutva. So much so that even local Bharatiya Janata Party officials seem to be cut up with Chaudhary, blaming him for being more of a neta than them. A Hindutva influencer Chaudhary’s social media profile is dotted with short videos of himself applying vermilion on an idol of the Hindu god Hanuman. Often, he shares reels in which he is performing religious rituals or garlanding idols while wearing his police uniform. Many in Sambhal said this overt display of devotion can sometimes blur the line that separates Hinduism from Hindutva. But it has made him a darling of the Hindi press. Just days after the November violence, in which Muslim protesters clashed with the police during a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid that Hindutva groups claim had been built on the site of a temple, Chaudhary opened an out-of-use temple close to the mosque. Pictures of him clearing the dust off an idol and ringing the bell while in uniform were widely published. He went a step further on January 1, joining a religious procession while on duty. In a video report, Navbharat Times flashed visuals of him wielding a mace and described him as an “avatar” of Hanuman. Some of Sambhal’s residents, such as lawyer Mohammad Yaqub Gama, blamed television channels for giving Chaudhary so much attention. “Jungle mein mor naacha, kisne dekha?” he asked, invoking a common Hindi idiom: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The implications of the media making a star out of Chaudhary were most starkly visible during the November violence in Sambhal, which claimed five lives, residents said. The police narrative of events overshadowed specific allegations of killings made against Chaudhary. Opening fire Residents allege that the police opened fire on protestors outside the mosque on November 24. The police, on the other hand, have denied firing. Chaudhary was in the eye of this storm. Shehnaz, a Sambhal resident, later told The Caravan that she blamed Chaudhary for killing her son Bilal. “He [Chaudhary] ordered the shooting, he fired the gun himself,” the bereaved mother alleged, pointing to a video of an unidentified police officer firing. When pressed about this video by a journalist, an irritated Chaudhary did not deny the allegation. He argued the police had the right to self-defence. “Did we join the police to get killed by them?” he asked. “Should an educated officer be allowed to die at the hands of these illiterates?” Speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect himself from retribution, a Sambhal-based student-activist claimed that Chaudhary acted out of enmity towards Muslims during the violence in November. “He [Chaudhary] was involved in the shooting,” the activist alleged. “He even went to the hospital to find out who survived and locked them up in jail.” Sambhal police have revealed little about the November killings so far. They did, however, arrest one man in January for allegedly firing gunshots at Chaudhary. The officer did not respond to several interview requests from Scroll. Calls, messages and emails did not elicit a response. The piece will be updated if he does respond. Chief minister’s favourite Chaudhary stirred the communal pot in Sambhal again on March 6, in the middle of Ramzan, when he proposed that the town’s Muslims avoid visiting the mosque the following Friday because it would coincide with Holi. “Friday comes 52 times in a year, Holi just once,” he said. If they did step out, he went on, they should allow Hindus to apply colours on them even against their will. Ironically, Chaudhary made his provocative remarks at a peace committee meeting meant to manage any tensions that could occur since Ramzan and Holi were coinciding. It is not that only local Muslims were angry with Chaudhary for his provocations: his own colleagues too appeared to be exasperated. His seniors rushed to put out the fire he had ignited. Krishan Bishnoi, Sambhal’s superintendent of police, stepped in to say the administration was working to ensure Holi celebrations conclude well ahead of Muslims’ evening prayers. District magistrate Rajender Pensiya reprimanded Chaudhary in all but name by instructing officials to refrain from making comments in the media without authorisation. The former wrestler became a focus of the opposition. The Congress party’s Udit Raj said Chaudhary was “spreading hate”. Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh called him a “slave” of the ruling BJP. Even anchors on government-leaning TV channels, such as ABP News, criticised his “small-minded” thinking. Crucially, however, the chief minister personally came out in his support. “Some people feel bad because he is a wrestler and talks like one,” Adityanath said with an avuncular grin. “But what he said is true and should be accepted.” Chaudhary promptly shared the chief minister’s endorsement on his Instagram account. The Rampur model Adityanath’s public defence of Chaudhary’s incendiary statements was not without meaning. The relationship between the two is more political than administrative, local politicians claimed. “He [Chaudhary] has become bigger than the local administration,” said Saulat Ali of the Bahujan Samaj Party. “There are a few such people that the chief minister has nurtured in every district. He is running his government on the backs of these people.” Chaudhary’s time in nearby Rampur, where he famously clashed with Samajwadi Party bigwig Azam Khan in 2023, is discussed obsessively in Sambhal. The two were involved in a heated exchange that drew attention from the Hindi press, which fawned over the officer for supposedly standing up to the politician. Khan dominated Rampur’s politics for over four decades till 2022, when, for the first time, the BJP managed to dislodge him and his kin from both the district’s MP and MLA seats. A pliant bureaucracy played a key role in making this possible, locals say. Khan has faced dozens of criminal cases – his most recent election affidavit listed 87 – and prolonged periods of imprisonment since Adityanath came to power in 2017. The BJP does not shy away from acknowledging the role of the local bureaucracy in fighting its political battles in Rampur. “Without such officers, can those people be controlled?” asked Uttar Pradesh minister and Rampur BJP leader Baldev Singh Aulakh, referring to the Chaudhary-Khan spat. Bureaucracy versus Barq After his run-in with Azam Khan in Rampur, Chaudhary’s Sambhal posting in December 2023 was viewed with suspicion. “Wherever there are popular Muslim MLAs or MPs, such officials are brought in to cut them to size,” explained the student-activist from Sambhal quoted earlier. Chaudhary’s move came at a time when politics in the district was going through a churn. Its ailing nonagenarian MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq, who had been at the centre of local politics for half a century, passed away two months after his arrival. Ziaur Rahman Barq, the veteran parliamentarian’s grandson, won the Sambhal Lok Sabha seat for the Samajwadi Party that summer and vowed to continue his grandfather’s political legacy. Scroll had reported Chaudhary was accused of suppressing Muslim and Dalit voters in Sambhal during that election. Ever since the young Barq won the election, though, he has been in the crosshairs of the district administration. Municipal officials razed some stairs outside his house in December; the electricity department claims his family pinched power worth almost two crore rupees. Separately, he is under investigation for allegedly instigating the November 2024 violence. “The administration is not targeting him, he has been caught stealing,” said BJP’s Parmeshwar Lal Saini, who lost the election against Barq in 2024. “All officials are merely performing their duties.” Many residents believe that the woes district officials have inflicted on Barq are just one element of the larger ruling party campaign to polarise people in Sambhal along religious lines. They cite Chaudhary’s comments before Holi and the denial of police permission to a traditional fair for allegedly hurting “Hindu sentiments” as other instances of babus embracing this agenda. Meeran Chadha Borwankar, who retired from the police service as a director general in 2017, voiced her disapproval of the action of the police in Sambhal. “Dividing the country on the basis of religion and caste is the worst kind of disservice that politicians are doing to the country,” she said. “And that some civil servants have joined hands with them is a catastrophe of untold proportion.” But Rajesh Singhal, who has contested three Vidhan Sabha elections from Sambhal for the BJP, dismissed these concerns and passionately defended the officer. “Anuj Chaudhary did not do anything wrong,” he said. “If anything, he has brought Sambhal under control.” Rubbing BJP leaders the wrong way Chaudhary seems to have so blurred the line between bureaucrat and politician that even some BJP leaders expressed discomfort with his growing stature. Chaudhary’s direct relationship with Adityanath means that the BJP-led state government does not depend as much on local ruling party leaders as previous governments did. Singhal, the BJP old hand, complained that under the present government, there was little political work for him to do. “Officials have become politicians and we leaders are doing the work of the administration now,” he said. “We have to run after them to get people’s work done.” Ironically, Singhal seemed to prefer the time when the BJP wasn’t in power. He spoke nostalgically about his early years in politics when the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party alternately ruled Uttar Pradesh from 2002 to 2017. Those parties brazenly misused the government machinery, he contended, but at least local politicians like him were in the thick of the action. “I used to have 20 cases against me par maza toh tab hi aata tha,” he said, admitting that politics was more fun before because he was directly in the fray. Some BJP members deflected blame from Adityanath and instead held the media responsible for Chaudhary’s star status. “Officials are, after all, officials,” said Aulakh, the Uttar Pradesh minister. “I should not say this but the media is highlighting him too much.” Even when BJP leaders praised him for his “good work” and insisted they were not miffed with his fame, their answers betrayed a hint of envy. “When it comes to stopping the oppression of Hindus in Sambhal, Anuj Chaudhary has done what no other official could,” said Rampur’s former MP Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi. “Most officials come and go but the media does not notice them. Yet, he is getting attention. May God give him more.” PR management Chaudhary’s public image, key to his power, seems to be carefully managed by him. Last December, an audio recording of a purported phone call between Chaudhary and Mashkoor Raza, a content creator from Moradabad, circulated on social media. In it, Raza was pestering the officer for an interview. The conversation ended with Chaudhary threateningly asking the YouTuber his address. Later, several local and national media channels carried stories saying Raza had been arrested for threatening an officer on duty. These reports used a video in which an apologetic Raza was seen limping with two uniformed police officers supporting him on either side. When Scroll contacted him to discuss what happened in December, Raza claimed the police had actually threatened to lame him for real if he did not limp in the allegedly fake video. They shot it “like films” with more than 10 takes to get it right, he told Scroll. “Anuj Chaudhary and his officers forced me to record it,” he said. “He shows something else but the reality is different.”