Day after video showed man dragged out of police van, beaten, police call it fatal accident

Superintendent of City (Shamli) Ajay Kumar said on Wednesday, “As per post-mortem report, the victim died of a wound on the back of his head. It affirms the fact that he did not die in the scuffle that occurred when he was in police vehicle. He managed to escape, which is not shown in the video.”

The SP said Rajendra was inebriated, and in that state tried to climb the roof of a house —“his hand slipped on cowdung on the wall, resulting in a fatal fall.”

The video purportedly shows Rajendra being thrashed by a mob and later falling on the floor, as policemen look on.

Rajendra ran a small grocery store next to his house and was the only earning member of the family, including wife Rekha, four-year-old son, his parents, a 19-year-old brother and three widowed cousins.

His brother Ankit said that “rowdy elements” from a family in the neighbourhood began an argument when Rajendra was in the shop on Tuesday. “Soon, they pulled him out, dragged him for about a hundred metres and beat him with sticks,” Ankit alleged.

According to Ankit, the PCR vehicle came shortly but instead of taking the situation under control, the policemen “took him inside the car and beat him, resulting in his death”.

While the police claimed Rajendra was inebriated and put up a fight when he was being detained, family members denied that he was drunk, or had created a nuisance. According to Baby (35), an ASHA worker in Hathchhoya who recorded the video, “The (district) magistrate asked us a few days ago to make videos of people who create nuisance after drinking. When I saw this, I did it (record video) because it appeared he was drunk. I have reported my husband twice, and it (drinking) is a serious issue in this area.”

Several villagers also denied the police version of Rajendra dying due to a fall.

Another local resident said, “It is an absurd theory that he slipped from a certain height. He had died the moment he fell on ground. When family members came, they took his body to the house. We realised he was not breathing, so there was no point taking him to the hospital. The body was later sent for autopsy in Shamli. Both the police and the accused family (to whom Rajendra had sold eggs on Tuesday, according to his brother) have a role in this.”

The police admitted that more force could have been used to pacify the crowd. An officer said, “Since the information received at 3.37 pm was that of nuisance, a home guard and a driver went at first. Most of the force had been deployed on Kumbh duty. We received information of Rajendra’s death two hours later, and officers from Jhinjhana Police Station were mobilised then.”