Rae Bareli police have dropped the attempt to murder charge against three men accused of attacking a woman and her 12-year-old daughter in Jagatpur area on Wednesday even as the accused secured bail from an SDM court on Friday amid allegations that police failed to disclose that two of them were wanted in a separate case involving an assault on a Dalit woman and her family.
The decision to assign the probe to an officer from outside Rae Bareli comes amid questions over the alteration of charges, the disputed medical report and the handling of the two cases. Singh also questioned why no provision relating to the alleged attempt to abduct her daughter was invoked. The case is linked to an alleged assault on a Dalit woman and her family. Singh’s family alleged that the attack on them was in retaliation for helping the Dalit family approach the police and register an FIR. Singh alleged that police did not inform the SDM court about the two accused wanted in a separate case before granting bail to all three men. She also alleged that the accused assaulted her again at Jagatpur police station when she went to report the incident and that police personnel intervened to stop them. A video of the incident circulating on social media purportedly shows the three men pelting a car with stones, but HT could not independently verify the footage.
Police initially registered an FIR against Ritesh Mishra, Satyam Mishra and Shivam Mishra under Sections 191(2), 109, 115(2), 131 and 324(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Section 109, pertaining to attempted murder, was subsequently dropped.
Inspector general of police, Lucknow range, Kiran S said he would personally review the case and have an officer from another district investigate it. Ritesh and Satyam, sons of village pradhan Ramesh Mishra, are also wanted in that case and the woman remains hospitalised, according to available information. The attacked woman’s family had helped a Dalit woman and her relatives get an FIR registered against a village pradhan and his two sons over an alleged assault on Tuesday.
When contacted over phone, village pradhan Ramesh Mishra denied the allegations, calling the cases a conspiracy to implicate him and his family in false criminal cases over a land dispute.
He alleged the same Dalit woman had earlier lodged a false rape and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act cases against him.
