UP: Murder attempt FIR against suspended IPS officer

LUCKNOW: Suspended IPS officer Mani Lal Patidar and several others were booked for attempt to murder by Mahoba police late on Friday evening. Patidar was Mahoba police chief till Wednesday but was suspended by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on charges of corruption.
The FIR was lodged by the brother of the trader Indrakant Tripathi, who was shot at on Tuesday, a day after he released a video in which he accused Patidar of seeking bribe for allowing him to run his business of crusher. Others booked along with Patidar on Friday are a suspended inspector, Devendra Shukla, trader Suresh Soni and some unidentified cops.
Tripathi was shot in the neck while he was returning home from Banda road on September 8. He was later taken to district hospital from where doctors referred him to Regency Hospital in Kanpur Nagar. Tripathi is stated to be critical and is on ventilator. On Friday night, after hours of discussion with senior cops and acting on the complaint of Trupathi’s brother, Ravi Kant, the FIR was lodged.
Ravi Kant has said in his FIR that his brother was a licence holder for carrying out crushing works in the district. But former SP of Mahoba, Patidar, had been illegally demanding Rs 6 lakh for running vehicles engaged in transportation of stone chips.
“When his demand was not met, vehicle owners were harassed through the suspended SHO, Kabrai, Devendra Shukla,” the FIR says. He also stated in the FIR that his partners, Kishore Diwedi and Purushotam Soni, who have proper licences of doing crushing work were asked to appear in person by cops and pay Rs 6 lakh to Pathidar. However, when my brother could not pay the amount, the then SHO, Kabrai, Devendra Shukla instructed him to meet on September 3. “My brother met Patidar and begged before him that he would not be able to pay the money because of losses. But it had no impact on him and he began abusing him and threatened to get him eliminated,” he stated.
An FIR has already been registered against Patidar under the charges of Prevention of Corruption Act on Thursday after he was suspended.