Two local BJP leaders have been booked for allegedly killing a 26-year-old woman — a prime witness in her husband’s murder case — in Mainpuri on Thursday. City Kotwali police Station House Officer Sukhbeer Singh Sirohi said Deepti was on her way to a market near Shringar Nagar locality in the morning when men on a motorcycle came up behind her and fired shots at close range. She suffered two gunshot injuries on her head and chest. People in the area rushed her to a hospital where doctors declared her brought dead. She has a four-year-old son.
He said local BJP leaders, Shivam Chauhan and his brother Pawan, and their uncle Bunty were named by Deepti’s mother Ratnesh Kumari in the FIR registered on her complaint. No arrests have been made till the filing of this report. “We are verifying their role in the case,” said the SHO. Deepti’s husband Billu Chauhan (in his 30s) was shot dead in January, 2015.
Shivam, Pawan, their father Madan Chauhan and his brother Bunty were named in the case, along with Madan’s aide Atul Chauhan, said police. Billu Chauhan had allegedly accused Atul of having an affair with his wife, Deepti. After her husband’s murder, however, Deepti had not recorded her statement, the police said. The police however, gave a clean chit to the Chauhan family even as it chargesheeted Atul for Billu’s murder.
Later in the year, Madan Chauhan was shot dead outside a fuel station. This time, Billu’s family was accused of killing him. “In the Madan Chauhan murder case, eight members of Billu’s family have been chargesheeted and are at presentlodged in jail,” said Circle Officer (Mainpuri City) Rakesh Kumar Pandey. Among those in jail are Billu’s father, brother and cousins. Police said Deepti was pursuing her husband’s murder case and also fighting for her family’s release in the Madan Chauhan case.
When contacted, BJP’s Mainpuri district president Alok Gupta said, “Madan Chauhan was a member of BJP’s Brij Region committee when he was murdered. He was party’s district president between 2010 and 2013. His sons, Shivam and Pawan, are active members of BJP, but they do not hold any post.”
“I have spoken to Mainpuri SP Rajesh Sa in connection with the woman’s murder and requested him to look into all angles. Shivam and Pawan have been falsely implicated,” he added.