The wife of cab driver Aqueel Ahmed, who was lynched in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri on Tuesday, has complained to the district police chief that what was a minor brawl was given a sinister communal colour by a BJP leader and his associates and her husband was murdered.
Farzana Begum, 28, wrote in the letter to Lakhimpur Kheri police superintendent Sanjeev Sumas that local cops were trying to remove the name of the accused Anup Shukla, former vice-president of the district BJP unit and current chairman of the district cooperative federation, from the case. Farzana apprehended further attacks on her family.
Writing on the basis of what she said was an eyewitness account of the lynching of Aqueel in the presence of hundreds of people, Farzana stated: “The husband (Aqueel) of the applicant (Farzana), his friends Suhel Baba and Chunnan had gone to see the Vilobi Memorial Fair… when Rajat Rastogi tapped on Suhel’s head. This led to an argument between the two in which the husband of the applicant tried to play peacemaker.
“In the meantime, Rastogi called his friend Devarshi Shukla, son of Ajay Shukla (president of the Senior Advocates’ Council, Uttar Pradesh), and told him that a Hindu-Muslim dispute had arisen…. Devarshi Shukla, his uncle Anup Shukla, Brijesh Shukla (Anup’s younger brother) and others reached the Vilobi Memorial Hall and attacked my husband with criminal intentions. The friends of the applicant’s husband managed to escape but he (Aqueel) couldn’t run away and was lynched.”
Rastogi, Anup, Devarshi and Brijesh have been arrested.
“Although the accused were arrested (on Wednesday), I have come to know that the police are trying to remove Anup’s name from the case. Many people have told me that Anup had declared at the fair while beating my husband that it was happening because of a Hindu-Muslim dispute,” Farzana told reporters in Lakhimpur Kheri on Friday.
Seeking to know what evidences the police had collected so far, she asked the SP: “Why was 302 (the IPC section for murder) not added to the case and why are the police avoiding giving me the CCTV footage of the incident?”
The police have booked the four accused for unintentional killing.
Fearing further attacks on her family, Farzana said: “An unpleasant incident can take place against members of my in-laws’ family and so they should be given (police) security.”
“My brother-in-law (Sharif Ahmad), who had registered the case against the attackers, may also be killed,” she said, demanding a “high-level inquiry into the incident”.
Arun Kumar Singh, the additional superintendent of police, said: “The accused are in jail and the case is under investigation. We may add new sections of the penal code after the initial probe is complete.”
Singh had said on Thursday that Devarshi had argued with Aqueel over sitting in a swing ride at the fair and later called his uncle Anup, who reached the spot along with others and beat Aqueel to death.
A BJP leader in Lakhimpur Kheri had said Anup and the others didn’t want to kill Aqueel.
“Rastogi had hit Aqueel on his back, following which he fell on the ground and later died. Unfortunately, the police arrested them and also released their pictures as criminals even though there is a BJP government in the state,” the leader had said, requesting anonymity.
