Protests, political row over Lucknow trader’s death after ‘custodial torture’, 2nd case in 2 weeks

Trader Mohit Pandey's family hit the streets after his death. Chinhat SHO was suspended & booked for criminal conspiracy and murder with three others based on the family's complaint.

Representative image | By special arrangement | ThePrint

Lucknow: The death of a 32-year-old man after he was allegedly tortured in Lucknow police’s custody—the second such incident in the capital of Uttar Pradesh in 16 days—has kicked off a political storm ahead of bypolls to 10 assembly seats.

Mohit Pandey, a seller of school uniforms, died Saturday, allegedly after torture in custody at the Chinhat police station. His family said Mohit exchanged blows with a porter, Adesh Kumar Singh, who he owed money, and Adesh threatened him with his connections to a minister. In connection with the dispute, the police allegedly tortured Mohit in lock-up on Friday night.

After Mohit was declared dead at the Lohia hospital Saturday, the family hit the streets, raising slogans against the Yogi Adityanath-led government and demanding the arrest of the police personnel who allegedly tortured Mohit. The UP Police later suspended the station house officer (SHO) of Chinhat police station and transferred two additional SHOs. They also lodged an FIR against the SHO and four others under the murder and criminal conspiracy sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Earlier in October, a 28-year-old Dalit man, Aman Gautam, died after his arrest from a gambling den in the Vikas Nagar area. Four police personnel were booked after his family alleged severe beating in custody.

On Saturday, Samajwadi Party leaders joined the family and Brahmin community members in their protest against the government outside the Lohia hospital. Lucknow police detained SP leader Pooja Shukla during the protest. BJP MLA from Bakshi Kaa Talab Yogesh Shukla also met Mohit’s family on Saturday and offered Rs 1 lakh. However, the family kept the cash on Mohit’s body and refused to accept it.

The Opposition has come down heavily on the police and the government. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, in an X post on Sunday, termed Mohit’s death as murder, adding that the government should rename “police custody” as “torture home”.

उप्र की राजधानी में पिछले 16 दिनों में पुलिस ‘हिरासत में मौत (हत्या पढ़ा जाए)’ का दूसरा समाचार मिला है।

नाम बदलने में माहिर सरकार को अब ‘पुलिस हिरासत’ का नाम बदलकर ‘अत्याचार गृह’ रख देना चाहिए।

पीड़ित परिवार की हर माँग पूरी की जाए, हम उनके साथ हैं।

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) October 27, 2024

In an X post on Sunday, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said the incident was “highly condemnable”.

1. यूपी की राजधानी लखनऊ में पुलिस हिरासत में व्यापारी मोहित पाण्डे की कथित तौर पर हुई मौत की घटना पर परिवार एवं लोगों में रोष व आक्रोश व्याप्त होना स्वाभाविक। यह घटना अति-निन्दनीय। सरकार पीड़ित परिवार को न्याय देने के लिए प्रभावी कदम अवश्य उठाए। 1/2

— Mayawati (@Mayawati) October 27, 2024

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met Mohit’s family members on Monday. He announced Rs 10 lakh as compensation for the family, along with a house and free education for Mohit’s three children.

Akhilesh Yadav issued another X post after the CM’s announcement, saying he wished that those who took life could also give life in compensation. “Hope that those who have extinguished the lamp of someone’s house on Diwali will not burn the lamps of lies and try to clear the utter darkness of their regime with fake lighting,” the ex-CM posted.

Fight over Rs 600, ‘links with MLA’ & a call to police chowki

A father to three children, Mohit Pandey sold school uniforms in Chinhat’s Jainabad area. Mohit owed Rs 600 to Gonda native Adesh Kumar Singh, who had, for three years, been working with Mohit as a porter, transporting dress material to stores for sale. On Friday, Adesh asked Mohit to pay up, Mohit’s friend Rahul Singh told ThePrint.

“Adesh put his hand in Mohit’s pocket. An angry Mohit then held him by his collar, and there was an exchange of blows. Later, Mohit and Adesh met me at Mohit’s workshop. Adesh called up his uncle, whose name he did not share with us. But, Adesh said his uncle has connections with BJP MLA Ajay Singh from Gonda (Colonelganj). He then called the Chinhat police and asked us to accompany him to the police station,” Rahul said.

Mohit and Rahul reached the Chinhat police station around 9.45 pm. “I returned after dropping Mohit to the police station. Adesh’s uncle had made a phone call, after which Mohit was beaten up at the police station,” said Rahul, adding that Mohit’s family and friends remained in the dark about the events till later.

Mohit’s brother-in-law, Ram Kishore Tripathi, who reached the Chinhat police station Friday, also told ThePrint that Adesh’s uncle used Ajay Singh’s name to threaten the family. “When we asked his name, he did not tell us and instead said if we hear his name, we would wet our pants,” Tripathi said.

The complaint filed by Mohit’s mother, Tapeshwari Devi, said Mohit’s elder brother, Shobha Ram, reached the police station to check on his brother at roughly 11 pm. After Mohit, the police locked up Shobha Ram, but separately, according to the complaint.

“The police locked up my elder son, Shobha Ram, too and said that he was drunk even as the second party was let off…. Both my sons were kept separately and later put in the same lock up after a long time,” she has alleged in the FIR, which ThePrint has obtained.

Rahul alleged that while the brothers were locked up, Adesh and his uncle roamed free. “Adesh had been roaming freely and was detained hours later. He is still not arrested and continues to be absconding,” he said.

Mohit’s brother, Shobha Ram, said the police tortured his brother before he arrived at the police station. “Later, the police beat him up in the night, too. His condition worsened in the night. He had been repeatedly pleading with the cops to lie down outside the lock-up since his condition was bad, but they kept abusing him and did not open the lock-up,” he said.

Shobha Ram alleged that Mohit died inside the lock-up at roughly 1 pm on Saturday. However, the police have released CCTV footage from the lock-up, showing Mohit alive at 1.37 pm. The footage showed Shobha Ram attending to him and rubbing his brother’s back, suggesting that Mohit died sometime later.

“Our phones were seized. We were not allowed to talk to our family. We managed to speak to someone after a lot of difficulty from someone else’s phone,” Shobha Ram said.

‘Beaten to death, not allowed to see body up close’  

The FIR charges Adesh, Adesh’s unnamed uncle, now-suspended Chinhat SHO Ashwani Chaturvedi, and another unidentified person under BNS sections 103 (1) (murder) and 61 (2) (criminal conspiracy).

The complainant, Tapeshwari Devi, alleged that when the family reached the police station early on Saturday, they were not allowed to meet Mohit or Shobha Ram. Later, Shobha Ram, over a phone call, informed them that the Chinhat police officers had beaten Mohit so much that he died.

“When we reached the Lohia hospital, we were allowed to see the body only from a distance and not allowed to go near the body,” she said.

Police officers said Mohit Pandey was first taken to the local community health centre before he was shifted on Saturday to the Lohia hospital.

Later that night, ACP (Vibhuti Khand) Radharaman Singh said in a statement that the body was shown to the family on their insistence, and a panel of doctors would conduct a postmortem.

Additional DCP (east) Pankaj Kumar Singh told media persons that both sides had come to the police station, following a dispute and breach of peace. “He died after reaching the hospital,” he stated.

In a statement shared on X, the Lucknow police said the in-charge of Gomti Nagar Extension police station has taken over the case investigation. However, the postmortem report has stated that cause of death could not be ascertained, according to the post.

“In view of the allegations leveled on the inspector in-charge and the FIR lodged against him, he has been suspended, with immediate effect,” it added.

The police have released three videos from the station’s premises. A 28-second video shows Mohit Pandey arriving at the police station, accompanied by Rahul and the Chinhat police officers. In another 1.24-minute-long video from roughly 1.37 pm, Shobha Ram can be seen attending to Mohit while another detainee talks to a policeman. The detainee also starts attending to Mohit in some time.

“We have seen the CCTV footage. In the first one, it is clear that Mohit Pandey fell sick inside the lock-up. His brother was attending to him. Another detainee was asking for water for Mohit, but the police did not help. A murder FIR has been lodged. The police are at fault. They were negligent,” SP spokesperson Pooja Shukla told ThePrint.

“If the government supports administrative mistakes, these incidents will continue to increase. Had the first custodial death not happened, this would not have happened. Police say they are under pressure to make money, and the money goes to the top…. The level of loot and corruption in UP is such that when a common man wants to submit a police complaint, they can not. Only those associated with influential persons can,” she said.

Pooja Shukla said that the accused side exercised their influence at the Chinhat police because of their association with the BJP MLA. “Mohit Pandey was tortured so much in lock-up. When his condition worsened, he wasn’t transferred to the hospital. That is against humanity. Had a similar protest broken out at the time of Aman Gautam’s death, this would not have happened. Due to the pressure exercised by SP, the CM met Mohit’s family early in the morning. It did not happen in Gautam’s case,” she said.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)