Sadar incident: Eatery owner’s body cremated amid protest

LUCKNOW: The cremation of an eatery owner, who was shot dead by two unidentified motorcycle-borne criminals in Sadar locality under Cantt police station limits on Saturday night, was performed amidst protest over failure of police to arrest the assailants, on Sunday.

The eatery owner, Deepu Verma, 35, was killed in the indiscriminate firing by the assailants. He suffered two bullet injuries in his chest while his worker, Anil Mishra alias Pushpraj, sustained injuries on his right hand.

The incident occurred when Deepu and Pushpraj were returning home on a scooty after closing the eatery stall at around 8.30pm on Saturday.

Police said that the incident appeared to be the fallout of the victim’s dispute with some unknown youths who used to demand free eatables from his stall posing as crime branch personnel.

Cantt circle officer Santosh Kumar Singh said the locals staged protest by keeping his body on the road before taking it to cremation ground at Pipraghat on Sunday afternoon.

He said the protestors were demanding immediate arrest of the assailants, following which several police teams had been

DEEPU VERMA, 35, WAS KILLED IN FIRING BY THE ASSAILANTS ON SATURDAY. HE SUFFERED TWO BULLET INJURIES IN HIS CHEST

deployed in the area to ascertain the assailants’ identities and arrest them.

Singh said that the agitation was called off after the senior police officers assured them to arrest the culprits at the earliest. Later the cremation was performed in the presence of police force.

The CO said, “We have scanned video footages of CCTVs and zeroed in on some suspects. The assailants seemed to be residents of near-by localities and the police are trying to identify them with the help of locals.”

Moreover, Verma’s worker, who suffered bullet wound on his right hand in the attack, had given some details about the assailants’ appearances and on that basis, the police were further probing the matter, he added.