Greater Noida: A Greater Noida court has ordered police in Gautam Buddh Nagar to register a case against 12 officers of the Jewar police station, including a former station in-charge, for the alleged illegal detention, torture, and non-fatal shooting of a B.Tech student from Mathura in a ‘fake encounter’ in 2022. The officers allegedly tried to implicate Somesh Gautam in an old murder case.
The case is related to a petition filed by the student’s father, Tarun Gautam, in the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
According to local media reports, in the petition, the student’s father Tarun Gautam alleged that on the late evening of 4 September, 2022, 10-12 plainclothes officers of the Jewar police station forcibly entered his home in Kadamb Vihar in Mathura, alleging that it was a raid in connection with a murder carried out by his son Somesh Gautam.
The police officers abused the residents, vandalised the house and then took Tarun Gautam to Jewar, wanting to know where his son was. Somesh Gautam was taking B.Tech coaching in Delhi at the time.
Two days later, on 6 September, 2022, the police then allegedly picked up Somesh Gautam from his Delhi location, took him to an unidentified location, blindfolded him and shot him in the leg, the petition claimed. In its official records, however, the police claimed that it had carried out an encounter and arrested Somesh Gautam in a murder-for-money plot.
They also allegedly took him to the Jewar Kotwali police station before this, where they tortured him, including carrying out beatings and giving him electric shocks.
Somesh is currently lodged in the Gautam Buddh Nagar jail.
On 14 February, 2025, after hearing the case, the Greater Noida court found the police case prima facie suspicious. It ordered that a case be registered against 12 policemen who were involved in the incident on charges of carrying out a fake encounter, police torture, and the shooting of Somesh Gautam.
However, the Greater Noida court also said that permission had to be sought from the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police Commissioner for further legal action.
Speaking to the media Sunday, Greater Noida Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sarthak Sengar claimed they had carried out a legitimate encounter and had sufficient evidence to prove it.
The ACP alleged that Somesh Gautam was a “hardened criminal” who had killed Nagesh, a resident of Neemka village, for money with his accomplices on 2 September, 2022.
In court, Somesh’s family alleged that the police had planned this conspiracy to trap the innocent student
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)