Cops blame Alwar lynching victims for sluggish probe
BLAME GAME While police say four people who were injured in the attack did not return after being discharged from hospital, dead dairy farmer’s son says cops did not record statements
The Alwar police on Tuesday blamed victims for the lack of progress in a case over the killing of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan by alleged cow vigilantes in the district over twenty days ago.
The 55-year-old farmer and four others from Nuh in Haryana were assaulted by selfstyled cow vigilantes near Behror in Rajasthan on the DelhiAlwar highway on April 1, branding them as cattle smugglers. Khan succumbed to his injuries at a private hospital on April 3.
Alwar police said the probe got stuck because the four, including two sons of Khan, who were injured in the attack, did not return to record their statements before the police.
Alwar superintendent of police Rahul Prakash said the four were told to record their statements at Behror police station after being discharged from hospital.
However, Khan’s injured son Irshad said though they were taken to the police station after the death of his father on April 3, their statements were not taken.
“We were there until noon the next day, but police did not record our statements,” he told HT from his village in Nuh.
Meanwhile, police arrested 30-year-old Yogesh Khati, the sixth arrest in the lynching case so far, and identified eight more people from the video of the attack circulating on social media.
“We have arrested six people so far, all of whom were identified from the videos,” he said. “We have identified two more people from the video and are trying to arrest them,” Prakash added.
Police registered a case of culpable homicide against six named and 200 unnamed accused for assaulting the five men around 11pm on April 1.
The FIR was registered on the basis of the statement Khan gave to the police from the ICU before his death.
On April 3, after Khan passed away, the section of culpable homicide was replaced with a section for murder (302 of the IPC).
Police named Om Yadav, 45; Hukum Chand Yadav, 44; Sudhir Yadav, 45; Jagmal Yadav, 73; Naveen Sharma, 48; and Rahul Saini, 24, for the lynching.
On April 5, police arrested three people — Vipin Yadav, Ravindra Yadav and Kalu Ram Yadav. Two more accused — Dayanand Yadav and Neeraj Yadav — were arrested on April 9. Khati was arrested on April 21.
However, none of those arrested were named in the FIR. The six named accused are absconding since Khan died in the hospital.
Earlier, on April 16, the Alwar police said they would not arrest the six named in the FIR before interrogating them to make sure they were involved in the crime.
Prakash said they were raiding various places to nab the six but added they would only be detained for interrogation.
“We will arrest them only after we are sure that they were involved in the crime,” he told Hindustan Times.
On April 5, Prakash announced a reward of ₹5,000 to anyone who would provide information that would lead to the arrest of the six absconders.