Author: PTI
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 23, 2003
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/23up.htm
A police constable was burnt alive
by an irate mob in a remote village of Baric district in eastern Uttar
Pradesh around midnight of Wednesday and Thursday.
According to delayed information
reaching the state headquarters in Lucknow, 'the mob was reacting violently
to the arrest of four villagers in connection with a cow slaughter incident
on Sunday'.
In view of a possible communal flare-up,
top police officials of the state have rushed additional police deployments
in and around the village Gulaha under Ranipur police circle, not far from
the Indo-Nepal border. "We will not allow the situation to get out of hand",
state police chief Hakam Singh said.
While the cops blamed it entirely
on the Muslim dominated village, the villagers have a different opinion.
"The two policemen posted in the village shortly after the reported cow
slaughter incident had allegedly misbehaved with some residents and even
indulged in extortion," said a villager.
Three days later on Wednesday, the
constables were replaced by another batch, who were on duty on the fateful
night. They were alarmed when some villagers set fire to some houses in
one corner of the village.
Just as one of the constables rushed
to a local legislator's house to call for a fire brigade, the angry mob
charged at the other. They thrashed him and tied him to a wooden cot on,
which they sprayed with kerosene oil and set it ablaze.
The other constable, on hearing
about the incident, ran for his life. By the time police reinforcements
and the fire brigade reached the village, they only found the charred remains
of constable Ram Narain Tiwari.
The state administration has ordered
a magisterial probe into the incident. While six persons have been arrested
in connection with the brutal killing, about 12 persons have been picked
up on the cow slaughter charge.