The Supreme Court on Monday sought response from the Uttar Pradesh police on a petition filed by the son of the victim in the 2018 Hapur lynching incident, seeking the probe to be transferred to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) with officers from outside the State.
A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna gave the direction on the plea of Mehtaab, eldest son of the deceased, Qasim Qureishi, invoking his right under the Constitution to a fair and impartial investigation into the “barbaric lynching” case.
Mehtaab, a resident of Hapur district in Uttar Pradesh, has also sought compensation from the government. His plea said his father was “brutally thrashed to death in a dastardly case of mob lynching on June 18, 2018.”
The plea said his father was the primary bread-winner of the family, who earned a living by buying and selling goats.
“The police officers investigating the case from the outset tried to create a false version of the incident in order to shield the accused persons from Bajheda village,” the petition alleged.
Mr. Mehtaab claimed the police have constructed a false chain of events to turn the lynching by cow vigilantes into an act of road rage. Thereafter, the police did not record the statement of the surviving, injured witness, Samayudeen.