Lucknow, October 8
The Samajwadi Party has accused Uttar Pradesh Police of killing a youngster in a “staged” encounter, and has demanded murder charges against the Station Head Officer supposedly involved in the case.
"By forcibly performing the last rites of Puspendra Yadav, the BJP government has proved it can go up to any extent to save murder accused (SHO). We demand lodging of an FIR under section 302 (murder) against the SHO and a probe into the case by a sitting high court judge," the Samajwadi Party said in a tweet.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav will visit victim's place in Jhansi on Wednesday, the tweet said.
The party has demanded judicial investigation into the incident headed by a sitting high court judge.
Jhansi Police deny the allegations. Jhansi's Senior Superintendent of Police OP Singh had claimed Yadav was involved in illegal sand mining and was enraged at the SHO for having impounded some of his sand-laden trucks on September 29.
Jhansi Police had claimed last week that Pushpendra Yadav, a man they claimed was an illegal sand miner, was killed in what they called an encounter that took place in the early hours of October 6. Police claim three motorcycle-borne youths, including Yadav, had accosted a police team led by Moth police station's SHO Dharmendra Singh Chauhan on Kanpur-Jhansi highway near Bamrouli crossing on Saturday night. They claim Yadav shot Chauhan and drove away in his car.
Police then went on to claim that anothe team spotted the stolen car near Garotha. Yadav was killed in the encounter that followed, they claimed.
Two separate FIRs were lodged at Moth and Gursarain police stations against Pushpendra Yadav, Vipin and Ravindra on Sunday.
The Samajwadi Party contests police’s story and claims that Yadav was killed when he came to meet the SHO to negotiate the release of his trucks.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath told reporters in January last year that his regime had seen more than 3,000 encounter killings, with more than 60 "criminals" having been shot dead in them—figures he cited while claiming that his government had brought down crime rates in the state since it came to power in 2017.
Critics and rights' activists however have accused Adityanath’s government of staging several encounters. —Agencies
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via Today’s News Headlines
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