By Omar Rashid / The Wire
New Delhi: Four months after a 17-year-old died in controversial circumstances while he was returning home from a meat factory in Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh, a first information report was lodged against five policemen on charges of allegedly beating him to death.
The case was lodged in Cantonment police station of Bareilly on August 17 on the orders of a chief judicial magistrate court after the father of the boy failed to get an FIR registered directly by police. The Bareilly police had maintained that the teenager, Arkan Ali, had died in an accident.
On the complaint of father Pappu Qureshi, the FIR was lodged against Bithri Chainpur station house officer Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, sub-inspector Dharmendra Kumar, constables Rajesh and Vipin Kandwal and home guard Veerpal. They face charges under culpable homicide not amounting to murder, extortion, criminal conspiracy, wrongful restraint and voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery.
Pappu Qureshi alleged that not only did the policemen assault his son but also robbed Rs 30,400 from him.
The incident took place on April 17 when Arkan had gone to a meat factory Mariya Frozen to collect money for a buffalo he had delivered there. Qureshi says he waited for Arkan till 11.30 pm before he got worried and called him on his mobile. Arkan informed him that he had picked up the money and was on his way home. Then at 11:45 pm, Qureshi says in his police complaint, he received a call from his son’s mobile phone but some unknown person spoke to him. The person on the other side of the phone identified himself as a policeman and asked Qureshi to quickly reach the spot with Rs 50,000 or his son would be booked on charges of cow slaughter, the FIR said.
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