A fight broke out between Dhirendra Singh and Jai Prakash at a meeting to discuss the allocation of ration shops
Delhi:
A man accused of shooting another man to death in the presence of police in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, has been arrested. Dhirendra Singh, who had filed a “surrender request” in a Ballia court, was arrested on the Lucknow-Faizabad road by the State Police Special Task Force.
The STF said that he had fled to Bihar after the shooting and that at the time of his arrest he had returned to Lucknow, probably to find a hiding place with someone he knew.
A request for surrender allows a defendant to surrender directly to the court, which then decides whether to send him to police or judicial custody. The process denies the possibility of immediate questioning by the police. In a normal arrest, the police can question the accused for up to 24 hours, until he appears in court.
The family of the murdered man, Jai Prakash, 46, has expressed relief at the arrest. “We want a strict punishment for the accused. We demand the death penalty for him. We also want security for the family,” said his older brother Suraj Pal.
Claiming that the local MLA was supporting the defendants, he said: “We have heard that they want to incriminate us on false charges. Then the government should help us.”
Witnesses said a fight had broken out between Dhirendra Singh, the former chairman of the local ex-military unit of the BJP, and Jai Prakash at a meeting to discuss the allocation of ration shops. Witnesses said that during the discussion, in the presence of the police and district officials, he had shot Jai Prakash three times.
Dhirendra Singh has denied wrongdoing. In a recently posted video, he said he had warned the police that there would be violence at the meeting and asked them to deploy additional security.
“But they went ahead (without enough security people). Officials were involved in the violence yesterday,” he said, accusing the officials of taking bribes.
Local BJP MLA Surendra Singh had defended him, saying he fired in self-defense.
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