Even as the police on Wednesday arrested the main accused in the killing of a dalit student in Allahabad last week, the arrest has thrown up more shocking revelations.
The main accused, Vijay Shankar Singh, was reportedly roaming freely in Allahabad for days after brutally attacking Dileep Saroj on February 9. Saroj died two days later. Preliminary interrogation
of Singh revealed that after attacking Saroj with his accomplices, he met others in the city to seek shelter. When this did not work out, he returned to his rented room, along with his driver, Ramdeen.
The crime branch sleuths had arrested Singh from Sultanpur bus station from where he was planning to board a bus to eastern UP. But before he could board the bus, the police nabbed him. The others accused in the case, Ramdeen Maurya and Gyanprakash Awasthi, have already been sent to jail.
Due to the initial callous attitude of the police in the days immediately after the incident, Singh had a comfortable time. It was only when the incident provoked protests that Singh realised the police would redouble their efforts to apprehend him; he then started shifting locations.
Before leaving Allahabad, he had called a friend, Gyanprakash, to seek his help in the issue, but the latter reportedly did not cooperate.
After the police started searching for him, Singh hired a taxi and, along with his driver, Ramdeen, fled from Allahabad. Once he was on the run, he switched off his mobile phone, making it difficult for the police to trace him. He also kept changing his location. Before being arrested, Singh went to his native village in Sultanpur, then to Faizabad, Lucknow and Delhi.
According to the Allahabad SSP, Akash Kulhari, it was with the help of his relatives that the crime branch team had nabbed him from Sultanpur. The SSP also admitted that at the initial stages of the investigation, there had been some laxity on the part of the lower-rung policemen, which led to the delay in arresting the main accused.