The CPM on Tuesday accused the Uttar Pradesh government and the local administration of covering up the death of a 17-year-old Dalit schoolboy in police firing in Rampur district on February 27.

Politburo member Subhashini Ali, who led a fact-finding team to Silai Baragaon village, said a plot of land belonging to the Gram Sabha was converted into a park to be named after B.R. Ambedkar following a call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for cleanliness campaigns.

The fact-finding team noted that on February 27, the subdivisional magistrate arrived with a bulldozer and ordered the police to fire when the women and children present there refused to budge. “Somesh Kumar, son of Shri Premchand, a Class X student, died on the spot,” the team noted. Ali told reporters that the police took away the body and returned with it the following morning and told the family to immediately cremate it. “The police have not recorded the bore of the bullet that killed Somesh.”