A First Information Report (FIR) was filed against five police officers, four months after a 17-year-old Muslim boy died under suspicious circumstances while travelling home from a meat factory in the Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh.
The policemen are accused of thrashing the teenager to death.
On August 17, a chief judicial magistrate court ordered the case to be filed in the Cantonment police station in Bareilly after the boy’s father was unable to have an FIR directly registered by the police.
Following the outrage on the death of the boy, the Bareilly police maintained that the deceased who was identified as Arkan Ali died in an accident.
On the complaint of the deceased’s father, Pappu Qureshi, the FIR was registered against Bithri Chainpur SHO, Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, sub-inspector Dharmendra Kumar, constables Rajesh and Vipin Kandwal and home guard Veerpal. They were booked for culpable homicide.
According to Pappu Qureshi, the police also allegedly stole Rs 30,400 from him.
As per the FIR statement of Puppu Qureshi, the incident occurred on April 17 when Arkan had gone to the meat factory, Mariya Frozen, to get payment for a buffalo he had delivered. Qureshi claims that he waited for Arkan till 11:30 pm before growing concerned and calling him.
On the phone call, Arkan had informed his father that he received the cash and was leaving for home. Qureshi further claimed that he later received another call from his son’s mobile phone at 11:45 pm, although the caller was unidentified.
The caller described himself as a police officer and instructed Qureshi to arrive at the scene as soon as possible with Rs 50,000 or else his kid would be charged with cow slaughter.
This alarmed Qureshi, who swiftly called for help from other locals and rushed to the Bilal Masjid locality in the Cantonment district of Bareilly. Upon arriving at the spot Qureshi found the police inspector, constables and the home guard beating his son.
Qureshi stated that the victim was found “lying on the ground in a pool of blood” and that a white automobile and a motorcycle were parked nearby.
Qureshi claims that the village Pradhan called SHO Chaubey on his phone before he and his team arrived at the scene. However, according to Qureshi, the SHO defended the policemen and threatened to set their village on fire and shoot them if they kept on arguing.
In his application filed under CrPC 156 (3) in the local court on May 4, Qureshi submitted a video which he says was shot by locals and shows the police officer allegedly threatening them. He accused the SHO of conspiring and said that his son had died after thrashing him brutally.
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