Six days after an inspector and a civilian were killed in mob violence after cattle carcasses were found in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr, top police officer Krishna Bahadur Singh has been transferred to DGP Headquarters, Lucknow.
Sitapur Superintendent of Police, Prabhakar Chaudhary has replaced Singh and has been appointed as the Senior Superintendent of Police of Bulandshahr.
Two other police officials were also transferred in connection with the mob violence earlier this week.
Acting on a report submitted by the Additional Director General of Police SB Shiradkar, Circle Officer (CO) Satya Prakash Sharma and Suresh Kumar, the in-charge of Chingravathi police chowki, have been transferred “for their failure in responding in time to the situation arising on Monday in that area”.
A senior home department official said they have been taken to task for not being fast enough in reacting to the situation that arose after some Hindu right-wing activists found some animal carcasses in the field and took them on tractor trolleys to block a road.
Police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and the civilian from Chingravathi village, Sumit Singh, were killed in the mob violence thereafter.
Read | Cop dies in violence over alleged cow slaughter in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr
The action was taken after a high-level meeting was presided over by the Director General of Police (DGP) OP Singh, who had handed over the report to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on his arrival from New Delhi.
Meanwhile, Yogi Adityanath has termed the Bulandshahr incident an “accident”. He had earlier said the incident was result of a “big conspiracy” but at a media event in Delhi on Friday, he said that the incident was actually an accident.
The police have so far arrested nine accused but the main conspirator Yogesh Raj, the district convener of the Bajrang Dal, remains at large.
Meanwhile, a soldier allegedly involved in the Bulandshahr firing was detained by his unit in Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, Army sources said.
Jitendra Malik alias Jeetu Fauji was detained by the 22 Rashtriya Rifles in Sopore town.
A special investigation team (SIT) of the Uttar Pradesh Police is expected to reach Srinagar later to take him into custody. Earlier, a UP police team was sent to Jammu to arrest him.
Sedition is one of the 17 charges in the FIR in which 27 people have been named besides 50-60 unidentified people. They were allegedly involved in the violence that led to the killing of Inspector Subodh Singh and Sumit Kumar.