Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Police have booked some of their own personnel — including a Station House Officer — for culpable homicide over the death of a 24-year-old woman in Chandauli district.
The case involves the death of Nisha Yadav, whose father Kanhaiya Yadav faces a battery of criminal charges, including rioting, as well as cases under UP’s draconian Control of Goondas Act.
Nisha’s family claims that she and her sister, Gunja, were alone at home in Chandauli’s Manrajpur village Sunday when a police team raided their home and beat them up.
Nisha’s sister Gunja told the press that her sister was beaten up “badly” with a belt and then hanged “loosely” from the ceiling fan “to make it look like a suicide”.
Chandauli Police have booked Uday Pratap Singh, SHO of Saiyadraja police station, constable Sanjay Singh, four unknown female constables, and “others” under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), Section 452 (house-trespass) and Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code, Chandauli Superintendent of Police Ankur Aggarwal said at a press conference Monday.
Aggarwal claimed that the police team went to Kanhaiya’s house for “checking as part of a raid” — an act Kanhaiya claimed was done without a warrant. Kanhaiya, the SP said, had a non-bailable warrant against him in a riots case.
The SHO has since been suspended, the SP said.
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The allegations
Gunja told the press that Uday Pratap Singh, SHO of Saiyadraja police station, led a team of policemen into the house Sunday evening. Kanhaiya, whom they were looking for, wasn’t home at the time, and neither were her two brothers.
Among those who came home were some women constables, Gunja told the press.
“When I objected, I was beaten and my sister was taken to another room, where she was continuously being beaten up,” she said. “Her back has several marks of assault with a belt.”
After they beat Nisha up, the police team hung her limp body from a fan and left, Gunja claimed. The police team was at their house for half an hour, she said.
“This is not suicide. This is being made to look like one,” Gunja alleged.
The police raid, the family claims, came a day after they arrested Vijay Yadav, Kanhaiya’s oldest son, under Section 151 arrest to prevent the commission of cognisable offences) under the Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
“SHO Uday Pratap Singh took my brother away around 6 pm Saturday and beat him up in the night,” Gunja told the press.
He was granted bail Sunday evening, she said.
“By that time, the police had already killed my sister. I borrowed a mobile phone and called him,” she said.
The family had been preparing for weddings when the tragedy struck: First Vijay’s and then Nisha’s.
‘Harassment’
A First Information Report filed by Vijay Yadav and accessed by ThePrint said the SHO was aware that the two women were alone at home Sunday evening.
Their father Kanhaiya told ABP News in an interview that police had been harassing the family since 2020 and that he had been living in Varanasi since July 2021 after the district administration issued a ‘Zilla Badar’ against him.
‘Zilla Badar’ is a notice that is issued by the district magistrate expelling a person with criminal charges from a district.
“I wasn’t home when the police came and took away my son (Saturday),” Kanhaiya said. “My younger son Vishal was trying to bail him out of jail.”
“By the time I got home (after Nisha’s death), a crowd had gathered and the administration was pressuring us to take away the body and conduct the funeral,” he said.
The family refused at first, but buckled under the growing pressure from the police. Nisha was cremated Sunday night.
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Cases against the father
Kanhaiya Yadav is a sand-trader with several criminal cases against him, many of these in Chandauli.
Apart from rioting, he faces charges under sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 110-g (security for good behaviour from habitual offenders), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, and power theft charges under the Electricity Act, police sources said.
In 2020, Kanhaiya and his sons — Vijay and Deepnarayan alias Vishal — were booked under the Goonda Act.
Police sources also claim Kanhaiya’s links with the sand mafia are well known.
Autopsy rules out major injuries
Chandauli SP Aggarwal told the press Monday that although the autopsy couldn’t determine the cause of Nisha’s death, it found nothing but a “scratch on the neck” and “0.5 cm long minor injury near left jaw”.
“Apart from this, no internal or external injury has been found. Still, we are investigating and have sent a report to forensics,” he said.
The SP had hinted in a previous statement that the death prima facie appeared to be suicide.
Nisha’s family, however, disputed the police claim.
“She has been beaten up with a belt. She had injuries on her back and feet, and there were marks on her body. After she died, they tied her up to a fan and fled the spot while my other daughter was unconscious,” Kanhaiya claimed.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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