Police clean chit to six men accused in Alwar lynching

Mangalore Today News Network

Jaipur, Sep 14 2017 DH News: Five months after Pehlu Khan (55), a dairy farmer was beaten to death by alleged cow vigilantes in Alwar, the names of six persons mentioned by Pehlu Khan himself before he died have been removed from the FIR by the Rajasthan police.

In his statement to police, Khan had named Hukum Chand, Navin Sharma, Jagmal Yadav, Om Prakash, Sudheer and Rahul Saini among those who had attacked him. Police sources say there was no corroborative evidence to prove that the men were part of the group which had attacked Pehlu Khan. According to the police sources, the photos and videos of the incident the police accessed did not show these six persons at the spot and the GPS of their phone suggested that those six were at a distance.

Alwar Superintendent of Police Rahul Prakash confirmed, "A reward of Rs 5,000 announced on each of the six accused was withdrawn as an investigation found them not guilty. We have withdrawn the reward against the six persons after an investigation by CB-CID into their role."

In July, Rajasthan Police handed over the investigation of Pehlu Khan lynching case to the CB-CID wing. Owing to the criticism received from family members of Pehlu and social groups for alleged delay in the probe, the investigation was handed over to CBCID, considering the appeal from family members of Pehlu demanding a fair investigation. However, Khan’s family and the Meo community were unhappy with the shifting of the case.

Earlier also the investigation officer has been changed twice. Initially, after receiving the criticism for the delay, Alwar SP transferred the investigation of the case to Circle Officer Behror Parmal Singh instead of SHO Ramesh Chand in April. But again when the social activists targetted Rajasthan police for slow progress in the case, it was shifted to Additional SP Kotputli Ram Swaroop Sharma instead of DSP Behror Parmal Singh Gurjar.

On April 1, a 55-year-old Pehlu Khan, hailing from Nuh in, a village at the border of Rajasthan and Haryana was attacked by a mob of cow vigilantes while transporting cattle procured from a weekly market in Jaipur to their village. Khan succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in Behror of Alwar district on April 3.