After Dalit youth dies in custody, mob attacks policemen, torch outpost in UP districit

The Monday’s fury was a fallout of the custodial death of 25-year-old Subhash Rajvanshi whom the police had arrested a day before on charges of stealing a motorcycle in June.

While the police claimed that Rajvanshi had committed suicide, family members of the deceased alleged that the police tortured him to death.

Barabanki’s Superintendent of Police Abdul Hamid said that a magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the death.
Four officers — Mati police outpost in-charge J P Yadav, sub-inspector Santosh Kumar Singh and constables Ram Raj and Kamta Prasad — have been suspended on charges of negligence, he added.

The SP said the developments began after an inmate Shyamu Rawat started shouting that Rajvanshi had hanged himself.

When some officers went to check, they found Rajvanshi hanging from the ventilator in the toilet attached to the lock-up.

He was brought down and rushed to the community health centre where the doctors declared him dead, the SP added.

Circle Officer, City area, Amita Singh said the autopsy report stated that the death was caused by ante-mortem hanging and that barring the ligature mark, the report also stated that no other injury marks were found on the body.

Later on, after the police handed over the body of the deceased to his step-father Chhotey Lal on Monday morning, villagers of Tindaula Barethi — where Rajvanshi had been living with his maternal uncle Ram Suchit ever since his mother passed away — gathered outside Mati police outpost around 12.30 pm and started pelting stones protesting against the death.

The CO said that the mob attacked the officers with sticks while a few others set the outpost on fire.

She added the mob was so relentless that the officers had to run away from the place to save their lives.

“Two policemen were brutally assaulted by the mob and have been referred to trauma centre in Lucknow in serious condition,” SP Hamid said.

He added that two persons have also been arrested in connection with the violence.