The Sambhal police on Tuesday said they are treating the death of a local BJP leader as a “blind murder” case as “there are no eyewitnesses”. Gulfam Singh Yadav, 66, died on Monday afternoon, after three men came to meet him at his farm in Debthara Himachal village and injected “poison” with the help of a syringe, his family claimed. Police, however, said the autopsy report did not confirm the presence of poison in Yadav’s body. “We are exploring all possible angles and treating it as a blind murder for now because there are no eyewitnesses in this case,” Additional Superintendent of Police (Sambhal) Anukriti Sharma said, adding there was no injury mark on Yadav’s body except for the needle injected in his abdomen. The viscera have also been preserved for further tests, police said. Yadav died while being taken to a hospital in Aligarh. His son Vinay Prakash alleged that three men had come to meet his father at their farm. According to Prakash, the three men approached Yadav and touched his feet. The BJP leader then asked his help to serve water to them. While one of the three men stepped out, two others sat with Yadav. One of them allegedly injected a liquid into Yadav’s stomach and fled on a bike. On Tuesday, Vinay Prakash in a complaint with the police accused four persons, including the present block head of Junawai, of carrying out “politically motivated” murder of his father. He alleged that four persons - Samajwadi Party supported block head Ravi Yadav, gram pradhan Mahesh Kumar, Mukesh Yadav, Dharma Yadav, and two unidentified persons were involved in his father’s murder. “A First Information Report (FIR) under section 101 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered on the basis of the complaint. Eight police teams have been formed to trace the absconding accused,” Station House Officer (SHO) of Junawai police station, Sunil Kumar Singh, told The Indian Express over the phone. The police have seized a wrapper of the syringe, and a helmet left behind by the alleged killers. “We have collected important leads about the accused and are hopeful of arresting them soon,” Superintendent of Police (Sambhal) Krishna Kumar Bishnoi said. A senior BJP leader, Gulfam Singh Yadav shot to fame after he contested and lost against the late Samajwadi Party chief and former UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav from Gunnaur Assembly constituency in 2004. Gulfam had quit his government job as lekhpal (accountant) and joined the RSS in 1976. He has been associated with the Sangh Parivar since then and later became the vice-president of the BJP’s West UP unit. He was also made in-charge of the Sambhal Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in the 2022 parliamentary polls and 2024 Assembly elections, respectively. Gulfam had also served as a member of the UP State Commission for Backward Classes. He is survived by his wife Javitri, who is serving her third successive term as the pradhan of Debthara Himachal village, two sons and six daughters. - With inputs from Neetika Jha, Noida
