A leader of the right-wing group Bajrang Dal was among the three people arrested in connection with the violence over an incident of alleged cow slaughter in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district that led to the death of two men, including that of a police inspector, officials said on Tuesday.
Syana Police have registered a case of murder and rioting against villagers after the violence in Mahav village on Monday. Police have named 28 people, including Yogesh Raj, convenor of Bajrang Dal in Bulandshahr, who had earlier lodged a complaint alleging cow slaughter, from nearby villages and 60 are unidentified.
A heavy force was deployed in the area as police raided the villages to arrest the named accused in the violence. Video clips of the incident are being used to identify those behind the violence.
Protesters clashed with police and set their vehicles and a police post on fire in the three-hour rampage on Monday after reports of the recovery of carcasses of cows at Mahaw village on Sunday night, said Prashant Kumar, the additional director general of police (Meerut zone).
Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh died of a gunshot allegedly fired by the mob. A 21-year-old man, identified as Sumit, too died after being hit by bullets.
Subodh Kumar Singh’s driver, Ram Ashrey, claimed the mob that attacked the police had firearms and when they fired, a bullet pierced the inspector’s left brow.
Ashrey said that he saw Singh lying injured while some people were firing from the nearby sugarcane field. “I drove the jeep in the field to rescue Singh with the help of three colleagues but a group of men surrounded us. The attackers pelted our jeep with stones. Another group continued to fire from the sugarcane field. We were left with no other option but to return with additional police force to rescue him (Singh),” he said
Singh was part of the initial investigation into the murder of Mohammad Akhlaq, a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri village who was lynched by a mob in September 2015 over another incident of alleged cow slaughter.