SRINAGAR: Jeetendra Malik, a jawan with 22 Rashtriya Rifles posted in North Kashmir's Sopore and accused of killing inspector Subodh Kumar Singh during Bulandshahr violence was reportedly handed over by his unit to the UP police on Saturday.
Sources said that after getting nod from top authorities of the army, it was decided to hand over Malik to UP police. Early on Saturday, the soldier was taken into custody by the Army authorities on the request of UP police in connection with the Bulandshahr violence.
A police team from UP on Friday had contacted the army authorities and sought custody of the soldier who had left the city soon after the killing of the police inspector. However, it was unclear as to where the soldier was handed over to UP police team.
Notably, Jeetendra Malik is one among the 27 accused named in the FIR lodged for violence, rioting and murder in Syana town of Bualndhshar district. Armed with an arrest warrant, a team of UP STF was sent to Jammu on Friday to take the jawan into custody and bring him back for interrogation.
Contrary to initial reports that UP police had arrested Jeetendra, highly placed sources in police department claimed that instead of handing over the custody of the accused jawan to the UPSTF, the army officials had detained him and left Jammu by air for Delhi. The sources added that army personnel, including a Subedar major and a few jawans, accompanied Jeetendra Malik.
After scanning over 200 videos related to the incident, the cops concluded that the army man was present at the spot of Monday’s mob frenzy which led to the loss of two lives including the police inspector. Jeetu had been on 15-day leave in Bulandshahr, his native place when the violence over alleged cow slaughtering erupted. His leave was ending on Monday when the violence took place. The sources claimed that the soldier left Bulandshahr just after the unrest.
Meanwhile, Dharmendra Malik, brother of Jitendra, claimed the latter was innocent and was being framed by police in the violence case. “My brother is being trapped in some conspiracy, he was not involved in the killing of the inspector Singh,” said Dharmendra adding that he had evidence to prove that his brother was not present at the site
where the incident took place on Monday. He, however, appealed the army authorities to keep him in their custody during his interrogation.
In another revelation, a day before Bulandshahr trouble, the district administration had issued a notice to the organisers of Tablighi Ijtema (Islamic congregation of devotees) over the huge assembly of Muslim devotees. The congregation was taking place at Daryapur village, 40 km from Chingrawati outpost, the epicentre of mob violence on Monday.
“Ijtema event was proposed to take place on December 1, 2 and 3. Due to increase in crowd on December 1, a notice was issued to the organiser of the congregation. Again on December 2, a notice was issued as tendency for increasing crowd continued,” said Anuj Jha, DM, Bulandshahr. He added that the permission was granted for a gathering of two lakh people, but the assembly grew to a strength of over 10 lakh.
On Monday the devotees were supposed to start returning at noon through Syana-Garh state highway on which Chingrawati village is located. The moment violence went out of control, the returning Muslims were diverted via Anupshahr town of the district, which saved the situation from turning further ugly.