NEW DELHI, May 19: Preliminary findings of the magisterial inquiry into last Thursday's incident at Panchgawan, where two men were beaten to death on the suspicion of being farmhouse robbers, indicate that it was an act of barbarity by the villagers with the acquiescence of the local police. SDM Gurgaon R.C.Powaria told Express Newsline today that he had reason to believe that the local police did not act on time.The SDM has another week to submit his report to Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner Devindra Singh. The SHO of the local police station was suspended last week while eight villagers have been arrested on charges of murder.Raj Yadav, who survived the brutal assault by villagers, in his statement to the SDM has alleged that the police team which arrived at the spot comprising a dozen policemen was led by local DSP Anil Kumar and Additional SP (Gurgaon) Charu Bali.His statement goes on to allege that the police officials instead of verifying their antecedents, only conferred with the villagers. ``We tried to tell them who we were and that our antecedents could be checked from our families and the Motibagh police station but our pleas fell on deaf years. A little later we were dragged out in the open and surrounded by the villagers and police. The police gave the nod to the villagers to begin thrashing us,'' he alleges.SSP (Gurgaon) Khusi Ram and Additional SP Charu Bali were not available for comment despite repeated attempts to contact them.Yadav told Express Newsline, ``The villagers repeatedly jabbed iron rods into our ribs and legs to check whether we were dead or alive, even as senior officials of Gurgaon police watched the barbaric scene silently.''An unsuspecting Yadav along with two of his friends, Dinesh Sharma and Jitendra Hooda, was returning to Delhi from Mahendragarh in Haryana after picking up his ailing brother-in-law, Sukhram Yadav, that morning. Suddenly, terror struck when they were detained by villagers at Panchgaon, a tiny hamlet a few kilometres from Manesar.The villagers were convinced the four were part of a gang of farmhouse robbers who had struck often in recent times. The Gurgaon police, who were summoned to the village, apparently thought the same and allegedly gave the villagers the nod to thrash them. The ensuing assault reportedly in full view of the local police left Dinesh and Sukhram dead and Raj and Jitendra with serious head injuries and multiple fractures on their arms and legs.The journey to hell for Yadav, Hooda and Sharma, all residents of Satya Niketan colony in south Delhi, began on Wednesday night when their Maruti car broke down near Panchgawan while they were on their way to Mahendragarh. They decided to park their car near a dhaba off the highway and took a lift to Mahendragarh in a Tata Sumo.According to Yadav, who returned home today from a private city hospital, when they returned to Panchgaon the next morning with his brother-in-law, they found their car surrounded by local villagers. ``They apparently thought that we were part of a gang of robbers and asked us to wait till the police came.we tried to explain but to no avail.''The suspicious villagers summoned an old woman who worked in a nearby farmhouse where dacoits had struck recently. Tragically, for the hapless four, the woman had a cursory look at them and claimed that ``they resembled them (dacoits)''. The villagers locked them inside a room and waited for the police to turn up.The police came soon after. ``When the police arrived, we thanked God because we knew we would now be able to establish our innocence in their presence and carry on home,'' recalls Yadav, a studio photographer.According to Yadav the villagers thrashed them with lathis, iron rods and showels. They begged for help and mercy but no one was interested. Sukhram, a doctor in Mahendragarh and Dinesh, a south Delhi BJP activist, had their skulls cracked open, the result of repeated showel blows. They died on the spot. Yadav claims that he survived because he feigned death and lay still despite bleeding profusely from the head, his right eye and abdomen. In a macabre end to the barbaric tale, the villagers stabbed the four with iron rods to check whether they were still alive.Taking them for dead, the police bundled them in their jeep and dumped them at the makeshift mortuary of the Gurgaon civil hospital. Yadav says he was conscious enough to thrust his visiting card to a person at the hospital with a plea to call the number listed on it. The good samaritan called up Yadav's family, who rescued him and Hooda from certain death.
