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Journalism of Courage
MEERUT, SEPT 25: In a daring operation, six undertrial prisoners of the Deoband sub-jail were shot dead this morning by armed men when they were being taken to the district court at Saharanpur, 50 km away. One constable of the security team escorting them was injured and has been admitted to a Meerut hospital. Old enmity is said to be the motive behind the killings which occurred on the outskirts of Deoband town, famous as an Islamic seat of learning.
The assailants also lobbed a crude bomb through a hatch in the driver’s cabin into the police van though no one was injured, said Saharanpur Range DIG of Police A.C.Sharma.
There were seven undertrials in the van which not the usual black Maria used to transport prisoners but a police truck converted into a van. According to DIG Sharma, a head constable and four constables, two of them armed, were escorting the undertrials.
When the van reached Sakhan canal near Mirakpur village around 11.45 a.m, located about 9 km from the jail on the Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur main road, a tractor-trolley was blocking the road at a culvert, eyewitnesses said.
As the van screeched to a halt, a jeep reached the spot. The assailants, whose exact number is yet to be ascertained, emerged from the sugarcane fields and fired indiscriminately on the van. The police fired back, says Sharma.
According to Sharma, a policeman sitting in the front seat received pellet injures in the eyes and chest. When he was being attended to by a constable, two of the unidentified men managed to force their way into the driver’s cabin and through the hatch threw a crude bomb into the rear of the van where the other two constables were sitting.
Sharma said the police were outnumbered. According to some accounts there were 12-14 men while others claim there were 20-25 of them, armed to the teeth.
The men then asked the constables to get down or face death. When one of the undertrials, Meharban, pleaded with them that he had nothing to do with their rivalry, he was allowed to go. One undertrial, Vishwas Tyagi (35), who wasn’t their target had already died.
The men then shot dead Dr Mohkham Singh (42), a physician and a leader of the Samajwadi Party, his two brothers, Shiv Kumar Singh (28) and Sansar Singh (35), and Mohkham’s cousins, Sahendra (46) and Tejpal (45).
They were reportedly lodged in the jail for allegedly killing one Chandrabhan of their native Sakhan Kalan village and his brother, Kishanpal, last February.
According to DIG Sharma, the rivalry between two Gujjar families dates back to 1991. The dispute was a minor one over chakbandi, quite common between farmers. The two sides had often clashed over a canal. There were cases of rioting, murder and attempt to murder against those killed, officials sources said.
The police found 10-12 cartridge shells of .12 and .315 bores at the spot. It was not immediately clear how many shots were fired in all or the kind of weapons used. The miscreants escaped after the shootout.
Security has been beefed up in the victims’ native village and a hunt has been launched for the killers, Sharma said. No report had been lodged at the time of writing, nor any arrests made.
Principal Secretary V K Mittal said in Lucknow it was being investigated whether the escort party put up any resistance or not.
