Feature Image Credit: Falana Dikhana
A shocking revelation has come to light regarding a barbaric incident that occurred last October in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi district. The incident occurred in Bandoiya village under Munshiganj police station limits in Amethi. Four men were accused of murdering a Dalit man, but further investigations by the police and a team of investigative journalists have shown that there is more to the incident than meets the eye.
It was alleged that four dominant men had conspired to kill Arjun Kori and had burned him alive. A widely-circulated audio clip purported to be from the deceased, where he allegedly names his killers before dying, had gone viral on social media. The deceased’s wife had named two others for being responsible for her husband’s death.
The mainstream media had earlier latched on to the story quite quickly and had called this an episode of ‘upper-caste oppression’ and ‘Dalit persecution’.
However, a thoroughly researched ground report of Hindi news portal Falana Dikhana ― which has been admitted into the charge-sheet of the case ― has revealed that the matter was entirely something else.
The deceased was the husband of Chotka, the pradhan of the village. But according to villagers, it was the deceased who used to take care of the affairs and day-to-day responsibilities of being the village pradhan, with the help of his aides Rambabu and Ajay Tiwari. Villagers claimed that Arjun often threatened people by claiming to file fake complaints under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, due to which they were scared of him. He had earlier filed a complaint under the SC/ST Act against Vinay Tiwari, a resident of the village, but the complaint was found to be fake after investigation.
It has been revealed that all of the accused were involved, in one way or the other, in highlighting the corruption, misuse of public office and embezzlement that the deceased was allegedly involved in. RTI enquiries and complaints had been filed to bring to light Arjun’s alleged corruption. An inquiry committee too had been set up to investigate corruption charges against the deceased.
What happened that night?
At around 11 PM on the night of the incident, the burnt corpse of Arjun Kori, a Dalit man, was found on the property of Krishna Kumar, one of the accused. Video footage recorded by CCTV shows that both Krishna Kumar and his 15 year-old son Ashutosh were at home and did not come out of their house at the time of the incident. Ashutosh has been named as an accused as well.
Another accused Rajesh Mishra was with the father of Ramakant (Ramakant has also been accused in this case) in the evening and returned home at around 9 PM. Neighbours corroborated that the other accused too were at home at the time of the incident.
According to an unnamed source, the deceased was mired in allegations of corruption and decided to take a novel way out. He decided to entrap the accused by charging them under the draconian SC/ST Act to prevent them from exposing his corruption. Arjun spread rumours about his abduction by the accused and went to the premises of Krishna Kumar. There he chose a ‘blind spot’ where the CCTV cameras could not record him. It is alleged that he then proceeded to douse his clothes with an inflammable liquid, intending to burn them slightly and claim that it was the accused who did so. However, the ghastly plan went awry and he died after being burned. A plastic bottle was retrieved from the scene near the corpse which was sent for forensic examination.
Deceased’s family changes statement
The deceased’s family has now changed their statement given to the police. They now say that Arjun was not murdered but his death was a suicide. They have admitted that the accused had filed for inquiries into Chotka’s term as village pradhan and the deceased’s alleged corruption, and it was this worry that drove the deceased to take his own life.
No relief for the innocent
However, the accused have been in jail for the past three months and have not yet been released as investigations are pending. The accused Rajesh Mishra’s mother passed away recently, but despite several pleas, he was not released on bail to attend to his mother’s cremation and other funerary rites. Rajesh Mishra was the only son to his parents.
Alhough the accused are now not being charged with murder, they are facing charges of abetment of suicide.
(Source: Falana Dikhana)
