UP Police files chargesheet in Bulandshahr case: Five, including Prashant Natt, charged with murder, Yogesh Raj for rioting

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Uttar Pradesh Police looking filed a chargesheet on Saturday against 38 people in connection with the mob violence that broke out in the state’s Bulandshahr district on 3 December, 2018, in which police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and a civilian were killed. Of the 38, five have been charged with Singh’s murder. However, the key accused, Bajrang Dal convener Yogesh Raj, is among the 33 others who have been charged with “rioting and violence”, reports said. The SIT filed the charges at a court in Lucknow, which will take note of the 3,000-page chargesheet on Monday. The five who have been charged with the police inspector’s murder include Prashant Natt, who was arrested by the police in January. The police said that those charged with the murder had “surrounded” Singh and shot him dead, NDTV  reported_._ On 27 January, the  police had recovered Singh’s mobile  phone from Natt’s house.

On 14 January, the Bulandshahr district administration had invoked the National Security Act against three people arrested in connection with the alleged cow slaughter that had triggered the violence in Siyana tehsil. Cattle carcasses were found strewn in the fields outside Mahaw village, after which a mob went on a rampage, attacking the local Chingrawathi Police Post. Besides Subodh Singh, a civilian identified as Sumit Kumar also died in the violence. Two separate FIRs — one for the mob violence, in which nearly 80 people, including 27 unidentified, were named as accused, and the other for the alleged cow slaughter — were registered at the Siyana Police Station. With inputs from agencies