Bajrang Dal man’s murder: FIR against over 200 Tanmayee Tyagi
NOIDA: The police filed an FIR against 21 named and more than 200 unidentified miscreants for inciting violence on Friday evening, following the alleged murder of a Bajrang Dal worker.
Ajay Choudhary, 25, died on Thursday night after being shot at point-blank range, in Sector 8, and three of the accused were arrested. However, members of various fringe groups and Choudhary’s family had gheraoed the Sector 20 police station on Friday. They put forth a memorandum of seven demands, including compensation for the family.
However, after the body was handed over to the family after the autopsy, stones were pelted at the police who in return resorted to a lathi charge to contain the situation. The last rites took place under a heavy police presence.
“There are a few drunkards who were creating trouble. The family was calm. Some of the miscreants are now in police custody,” Ajay Pal Sharma, the senior superintendent of police, said.
The police complaint says that when the family was about to perform the last rites, some of the accused held on to the body demanding they first needed a written assurance that their demands would be fulfilled.
Despite multiple warnings, the miscreants didn’t let go of the body and started chanting slogans and pelted stones on the police. The police even fired a few rounds of rubber bullets in the air, as a warning, officials said.
However, the protesters did not relent and the police had to resort to a lathi charge. Five of the accused were detained at the spot and they admitted to being members of various fringe groups provided information about their accomplices, the complaint said.
A case was registered against the accused under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 307 (attempt to murder), 341 (wrongful restraint), 332 (deter a public servant from duty), 427 (causing damage), 504 (intent to provoke breach of trust) and 297 (trespassing on burial places) of the Indian Penal Code, along with sections of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1932, and also under other provisions of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984.
Members of these groups have denied their involvement in the stone pelting and are alleging it to be a premeditated move by the police. “The stones were thrown by some of the locals who were not happy with the way the police had handled the matter. Our volunteers were there only to calm them and keep the situation under control,” said a member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) who was also named as an accused in the FIR.
He claimed they were being intentionally targeted .
“They cannot be a part of the violence, because they are all senior party workers,” Umanandan Kaushik, a spokesperson of the VHP’s Noida unit, said.