A soldier who is suspected of killing a police officer in the Bulandshahr mob violence has been detained in Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday. Jeetendra Malik, alias Jeetu Fauji, was detained from 22 Rashtriya Rifles army camp in Sopore, and will be handed over to the Uttar Pradesh police.
Malik emerged as a key suspect in the violence after he was spotted in multiple videos of the mob violence in Bulandhshar. Inspector Subodh Singh and 20-year-old Sumit Kumar were killed in the violence that broke out after cow carcasses were found. Police suspect Malik fired the shot that killed inspector Singh.
Meanwhile, the state government on Saturday transferred Bulandshahr SSP Krishna Bahadur Singh to the DGP office, five days after the incident. Principal Secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar said that the Senior Superintendent of Police will be replaced by Sitapur SP Prabhakar Chaudhary. Additional Director General (ADG) Intelligence SB Shiradkar had Friday submitted a report on the violence. Based on it, the government transferred two other policemen of Bulandshahr—Circle Officer Syana Satya Prakash Sharma and Chingravati police chowki in-charge Suresh Kumar.
According to reports, locals revealed that Jeetu had come to his village on leave and was "present at the site of violence" but left soon after the incident on Monday afternoon. "Both of my sons are in the Army. They are not here, they are on duty," his mother Ratan Kaurhad said, adding the police had raided her house around 1am Tuesday, assaulted her daughter-in-law, vandalised the house and picked up her husband, Rajpal Singh.
Speaking to a TV news channel earlier, she had said, "Jeetu is in Kargil and if any evidence like a picture or a video emerges showing he killed the policeman then I will kill him myself. I'm not so heartless, I'm equally pained by the death of the policeman and the other boy from Chingrawathi and also for what the entire village and its people are going through."
Sumit Kumar, from Chingrawathi village, who died in the clash is also among those named in the FIR.
-with inputs from PTI
