Three weeks after the dreaded mob violence over cow carcasses in Bulandshahr, the Uttar Pradesh police on Thursday claimed to have arrested the prime accused in the killing of police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh.
The accused, Prashant Natt, was arrested from the Bulandshahr-Noida border on Thursday afternoon.
Police sources said Natt was arrested after his identification from a series of mobile phone-made videos of the violence.
The police also said that the man has confessed to his crime. However, the weapon used for the killing, a pistol, is yet to be recovered.
Bulandshahar’s Senior Superintendent of Police Prabhakar Chaudhary informed that Natt is being interrogated.
The police took Nat and his accomplice to Kalwa for recreating the crime scene. The police said all the accused in the incident were from the Chingrawathi village, of which four are in jail now.
Initially the prime accused was Yogesh Raj, the Bajrang Dal district convenor, but he is still at large.
Police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and civilian Sumit Kumar, 20, were killed of bullet shots during the mob violence on December 3.
Right-wing groups demanded action against some locals and blocked traffic on the main road after which a police team rushed to the scene, only to be attacked by an infuriated crowd.
An FIR against 27 named people and 50 to 60 unidentified people were registered at the Siyana police station for the violence that was witnessed at Chingrawathi police post some Hindu right-wing activists found some animal carcasses in the field nearby Mahaw village of the district and took them on tractor trolleys to block a road.
So far, 20 people have been arrested in the mob violence case.
On December 19, five persons were arrested for their alleged roles in the mob violence and the cow slaughtering cases in Bulandshahr.
Read | Bulandshahr Violence: Police arrest three for cow slaughter; recover vehicle, weapon
Earlier this month, a top police officer and two other cops were transferred in connection with the violence.
Over 80 former bureaucrats had written an open letter alleging failure of the state and central governments in the handling of the December 3 mob violence in Bulandshahr’s Siyana Tehsil.
They had accused Adityanath of bigotry and sought his resignation over the violence in which an on-duty police inspector, Subodh Kumar Singh, and a civilian, Sumit Kumar, died after suffering bullet injuries.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had first called the violence an “incident” but later said that it was a big “political conspiracy”.