Lucknow cops face non-bailable warrants for botching up probe

LUCKNOW: A lower court on Tuesday issued non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against two policemen for “failing to appear in the murder case” of Rahul Sridhar. A Class IX student of La Martiniere College, Rahul had fallen to his death from the 100ft Constantia building on the campus on April 10, 2015.
The order has been issued on the complaint of Rahul’s kin who had on September 14, 2017, moved court against then Gautampalli SHO Surendra Katiyar and SI Ram Naresh Singh. The family had said the boy was murdered and insisted the two policemen, investigating the case, had tampered with evidence to pass it off as suicide.
Rahul’s mother Annamma told TOI that on the day of the incident, she had written an application asking for “fair probe” into her son’s “murder”, but SHO Katiyar got another application drafted in Hindi and “forced” her to sign it. Annamma, who is from Kerala, does not read or write Hindi.
The bereaved mother said the inquest details were also tampered with and witness signatures on the report forged. The procedure of performing inquest in the presence of a magistrate was not followed either. The bed linen in which Rahul’s body was brought to the mortuary was burnt while his school uniform went missing. Police recovered the student’s phone 24 hours later and tampered with it, the mother alleged.
The family’s lawyer Alok Kumar Singh said police had till date not clarified the role of Larry Conners who was in touch with Rahul over Facebook, and had allegedly lured the boy into dark and violent web games.