Bulandshahr: Police Eyewitnesses Detail How Bajrang Dal Set Up Inspector’s Death
BULANDSHAHR, Uttar
Pradesh — Nine eyewitnesses, including two policemen, gave HuffPost
India granular details on how the Bajrang Dal, an affiliate of the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), orchestrated the mob
attack on a police outpost in Bulandshahr district
of Uttar Pradesh, resulting in the death of a policeman and a
civilian on 3 December. Station House Officer Subodh Kumar Singh was killed as he sought to quickly disperse an angry mob
that was primed to attack a small group of Muslim men returning from a nearby
Muslim congregation, the policemen who accompanied him said. Had the mob succeeded
in attacking the Muslims, a policeman said, the district would have erupted in
a full-blown communal carnage. "If not for his
martyrdom, entire Bulandshahr would be burning now," said the policeman,
who was part of SHO Singh's posse. The policemen appeared
visibly scared as they spoke and sought anonymity as they feared for their
lives and employment.
Their testimonies
reveal how the Yogi Adityanath-led
BJP government has lost control of the Hindutva forces it once used to enforce
its writ. The violence in
Bulandshahr began soon after villagers found cow carcasses in the fields owned
by Raj Kumar, a farmer from Mahav village. Raj Kumar, who has since been named
as one of the accused in SHO Singh's death, rushed to the spot and (his family
members told HuffPost India) immediately informed the
Chingaravati police post about the incident. SHO Singh, and a small
group of police officers, arrived soon after. A policeman present at the spot
told HuffPost India that it was clear that the carcasses were
of cows killed at a different place and then transported to the area.
But the police were on
alert because they knew that tensions were high as lakhs of Muslim men had gathered
for a three-day congregation, called Tablighi Itjema, on the outskirts of
Bulandshahr.
"The sense that
we got after reaching the spot was that cows were slaughtered somewhere else
and brought there," said the policeman who, along with SHO Singh, was
amongst the first to reach the spot. "Kotwal Sahab
understood that it was a conspiracy to foment communal tensions in the area as
Tablighi Itjema was going on in the district." "Kotwal" is
the local term for station house officer, the rank held by Subodh Kumar Singh.
Singh convinced the
villagers to calm down and bury the carcasses, the policeman said, but members
of the Bajrang Dal, particularly the prime accused Yogesh Raj, the district
convener of the Dal insisted that the carcasses be loaded in a tractor
trolley and taken to the nearest police outpost.
Raj then instigated
the crowd to block the highway, the policeman said, prompting fears that they
were firing up the mob of Hindu villagers to attack a group of Muslim men
returning from the Tablighi Itjema. "Kotwal Sahab
understood their conspiracy and ordered a lathi charge to disperse the
crowd," the policeman said. "Imagine what would have happened if
lakhs of Muslims, gathered in the district for Tablighi Ijtema, would have got
the news of the attack on these three men." Instead, the mob
turned on the police. Videos of the incident show young men, armed with sticks
and bricks, storming the police compound. .. read more:
