Face of Nation : Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will visit Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi today to meet the family of a 28-year-old man, who was shot dead by the police earlier this week in an alleged encounter. While the police say the man had opened fire at an officer, his family claims he was killed as he refused to pay a bribe. The incident has sparked protests in the area.
The man had escaped after firing at the police at an intersection but his car was intercepted by them a few hours later. The police claim he refused to surrender and tried to engage again and that’s why he was shot.
His family, however, has alleged that the police officer in charge of the area, Dharmendra Chauhan, was demanding Rs. 1.5 lakh as bribe to release his truck. He murdered Mr Yadav after he threatened to expose him, they said.
“He had given some money earlier. But the inspector was asking for more money. He was shot dead by the police when he refused to pay money. I want justice,” Pushpendra Yadav’s wife told.
Senior officers have promised his family that a probe will be launched into the encounter. However, no case has been filed so far against the police personnel involved. The BJP had hit out at the Samajwadi Party chief on Monday.
The police cremated his body on Monday amid protests from his family members, who refused to perform the last rites demanding that a murder case be filed against the personnel involved in his encounter.
“It was an encounter. But Akhilesh has to go to the person’s house because he is in love with the sand mining mafia and casteism. But he does not care how the sand-mining mafia should be eradicated. This is precisely why he was thrown out by the people,” senior leader Sidharth Nath Singh had said on Twitter.
On Tuesday afternoon, the UP police tweeted a list of cases filed against Pushpendra Yadav in the past, to support their claims of his criminal past. But an analysis of the five cases reveals they were to do mostly with village-level disputes and none of the cases related to mining or any major sections of the law.
