Police suspect involvement of right-wing organisations in Mainpuri violence: Report

Karhal: Some right-wing organisations may have been involved in provoking riots in Mainpuri as per senior police officers.

As per a report in The Times of India, police officers who went to Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh after violence broke out there on Friday told the newspaper that prima facie some right-wing organisations seem to have been involved in the matter.

Violence had broken out in the area after a mob tried to lynch a group of Muslims charged with the killing of a cow.

The paper quoted Agra DIG Lakshmi Singh, who is leading the investigations, as saying that a name had cropped up in the probe and it belonged to a right wing organization.

Singh also said that that man's name is in the FIR as well.

At the same time the Daily quoted a high-ranking IPS officer involved with the investigations as saying that many in the mob were wearing saffron stoles and had raised slogans like 'Jai Shree Ram' and 'Gai humari mata hai'.

He added that the mob targeted shops that were owned by a particular community."

After Dadri, tension gripped the UP district after rumours of cow slaughter triggered violence with protesters targeting police vehicles and setting afire shops, leaving seven policemen injured on October 08.

Twenty-one people were arrested on October 09 for the violence even as the circle officer was suspended for alleged laxity.

The violence started after some persons spread rumours of cow slaughter in Karhal area.

However, the post-mortem report found that the cow had died due to an ailment, as per PTI.

As soon as the rumour spread, people in Nagaria village set police jeeps on fire and damaged several other vehicles and shops as they were agitated over rumours of cow slaughter in the village, police had said.

It was alleged that a cow, which was grazing in a field near the village, was taken away for slaughter and its skin was being removed in a house when some villagers barged in, the police had said.

District Magistrate Chandrapal Singh had said then, "A rumour was spread here that a cow has been slaughtered. But when we did a post-mortem of the cow yesterday, it came to the fore that the cow had been dead for sometime. The people who usually remove bodies of animals had taken away the cow and were removing its skin. That is how the rumour started about the cow being slaughtered."

Singh said that an FIR has been lodged against 29 named persons and 250 unidentified people for violence.

(With Agency inputs)