Woman dies by suicide after ‘police torture’ UP’s Aligarh, SHO sent to police lines

“Further action will be taken against the officer if he is found guilty in the inquiry. We have reviewed the CCTV footage from the police station, which shows her sitting in a chair, and no visible injuries were noted on her body,” said Sanjiv Suman, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Aligarh, adding that the post-mortem report confirmed that she died by suicide.

The woman’s body was found at 6 am but the village residents and her family members refused to hand the body over to the police for post-mortem examination and demanded that Yogendra Singh, who allegedly beat her severely, be charged with murder. They kept raising slogans agaisnt the police for more than seven hours.

SP Jain announced over a microphone around 1 pm while moving in a police vehicle throughout the village that the officer in charge was sent to the police lines as punishment and that an inquiry had been initiated. He said if the officer was found guilty in the report, he would be suspended and then only the local residents allowed the body to be taken for autopsy.

Lakshmi’s husband Bhure Yadav lodged a complaint at the Dadon police station, leading to a First Information Report (FIR). He said his wife was picked up by the local police from their house Saturday evening. “She was forcibly taken to the police vehicle by the SHO, who first assaulted her at our house. He then drove around the village in a police jeep while continuing to beat her before she was finally taken to the police station. She was told she could leave on Saturday night, but with the condition that she would have to report back on Sunday morning. Unable to endure the humiliation from the police, she died by suicide,” he said in the FIR.

Dhananjay, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Chharra, said the woman’s brother Rakesh Yadav, 40, had abducted a widowed woman with whom he was having a relationship. “He took her from her home at gunpoint in a nearby village Friday night. The woman was found Saturday morning, badly injured and semi-unconscious, in a desolate area of the village,” said DSP Dhananjay.

Shyam Sundar, the brother-in-law of a widowed woman, filed a complaint against Rakesh Yadav at the Dadon police station on Saturday. “He claimed that the pistol Rakesh Yadav was carrying on Friday night had been given to him by Bhure Yadav, the husband of the deceased. The local police visited Bhure’s home to inquire about the weapon, but since he was not there, they took his wife to the police station to pressure her into revealing the truth,” said the DSP.