Zila panchayat member’s son ‘shot at’ by assailants

LUCKNOW:Rae Bareli zila panchayat member, Rakesh Awasthi’s 23-year-old son, Shivam Awasthi, was critically injured after he was allegedly shot at by two motorcycle-borne unidentified assailants near his house in Telibagh’s Rathindra Nagar colony under PGI police station limits here on Friday afternoon, said police.

Doctors stated that the victim’s condition was out of danger as the bullet did not damage any vital organ.

The victim’s elder brother, Awdhesh Awasthi, apprehended that the attack might have been a fallout of his father Rakesh Awasthi’s political rivalry and hinted at the involvement of a Rae Bareli MLC.

Earlier, his father was attacked when he was travelling with Congress MLA Aditi Singh in her SUV from Lucknow to Rae Bareli to participate in the floor test against MLC Dinesh Pratap Singh’s brother Awdhesh Pratap Singh, who is zila panchayat chairman of Rae Bareli, on May 14, 2019.

The victim’s father had then blamed the MLC and his father for the attack.

Deputy commissioner of police (east), Charu Nigam, stated that initial probe suggested that the incident was suspicious as nobody in the crowded residential locality saw the assailants firing at the victim or motorcyclists escaping after the crime.

She said the sequence of events narrated by the victim’s family members did not match with the circumstances.

Inspector of PGI police station, KK Mishra, said the victim’s family stated that the incident occurred when he was standing near an SUV parked at some distance from his house around 1.30pm.

Mishra said the police scanned multiple video footages of CCTVs installed in nearby houses, but no assailant was spotted. He said locals even stated that they saw the victim’s family members bringing him out in an injured condition from inside the house before taking him to the hospital.

The inspector said the digital video recorder of CCTVs installed at the victim’s house was also missing and the licenced revolver of the zila panchayat member could not be found after the incident. He said the victim’s family had so far not directly put the blame on any person, but the police were probing the incident.