Police believe Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj also incited the violence in Bulandshahr after the discovery of cattle carcass in the village.
Lucknow: A month after he allegedly incited violence over suspected cow slaughter in Bulandshahr, local Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj was arrested late Wednesday night, police said.
The violence had led to the death of a police inspector and a 22-year-old youth in the Chingrawathi area of Bulandshahr on the afternoon of 3 December.
“Yogesh Raj has been arrested from Khurja area of Bulandshahr,” Bulandshahr police public relations officer (PRO) Ajay Veer said.
“Police had received an intelligence input that the accused will be coming to Bulandshahr from Khurja side. Acting on the tip-off, our team arrested him near Brahmanand College around 11.30 pm,” Veer added.
“He had been booked in the murder case and is believed to have incited the mob to launch an attack on the police team. He is being questioned by our team right now,” he said.
Raj, 28, is a resident of the Naya Bans village in Bulandshahr. He, among others, was booked on 17 counts relating to rioting, arson, murder, sedition and dacoity in light of the Bulandshahr violence, though he has claimed innocence.
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Violence in Bulandshahr
The violence started hours after cattle remains were found in Bulandshahr’s Mahav village, as a large mob gathered near the Chingrawathi police chowki to demand the immediate arrest of the accused.
As police teams tried to pacify the crowd, the mob turned violent. They pelted personnel with stones and bricks, and opened fire, police said. Syana police station inspector Subodh Kumar Singh was allegedly first attacked with an axe and then shot dead with his own service gun. A bystander, Sumit Singh, a 22-year-old undergraduate student, also died of bullet injuries.
The violence resulted in two FIRs — one on suspected cow slaughter, filed on a complaint lodged by Raj, and the other that names him as an accused in the clashes that led to the two deaths.
In his complaint, Raj said he had seen seven Muslims of his village — Sudaif Chowdhury, Ilyas, Sharaft, Anas, Shajid, Parvez and Sarfuddin — slaughtering cows in the Mahav field.
However, police discovered in their investigation that four of the seven accused, including two minors, had been wrongly named by Raj, and they were set free.
Two days after the violence, Raj released a video proclaiming innocence, saying he was not present at the protest site — a claim rubbished by senior UP cops.
Also read: Within a month of Bulandshahr cop killing, UP mob murders Ghazipur head constable
He should be subjected to the most “ sustained interrogation “. Killing a police officer goes off the reservation completely.