A day after the protesting farmer leaders at Delhi border had presented a ‘masked man’, claiming that he was engaged by police to kill four farmer leaders on Republic Day, Haryana Police has confirmed that he was tortured by the farmer union leaders to give false statement against the police. The man was beaten up by the farmers, and he gave false statements under fear, said Haryana police.
In a press conference this evening, Sonipat SP Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said that while the masked man had alleged that he was tasked by one inspector named Pradeep from Rai Police station, actually there is no police inspector named Pradeep in either the Rai police station or the whole district. He said that the person is from Sonipat and is unemployed, who had an argument with the protesting farmers over allegations of eve teasing. He was taken into a farmer camo where he was beaten up. “He has said he made statements under fear”, said that Sonipat SP.
The police official informed that masked man has not been detained or arrested, he is only being just questioned.
The ‘masked man’ was presented by the farmer unions on Friday night at Singhu border, where the union leaders had claimed that he was part of an alleged conspiracy to disrupt the ‘farmer’ agitation. The man had claimed that he and his team members were allegedly asked to pose as policemen and baton-charge on the crowd if things go out of control during the January 26 tractor rally. He had also claimed that he was asked to kill four farmer leaders on stage on 26th. However, interestingly, he had forgotten to say this, and had to be reminded by farmer leader Rakesh Tikait. This had raised the suspicion that the man was tutored by the leaders to make the serious allegations against police.
Proving those suspicions right, today a video of the masked man had appeared, where he had said that the farmers had tortured him to make false allegations. The man, identified as Yogesh Singh, had confirmed that he spoke in the press conference against police officials after he was threatened by farmer leaders. Making a shocking disclosure, Singh said that ‘farmer’ leader had warned of killing him if he did not make false conspiracy theories of attacks on farmers and blame Haryana police for the same.
Singh was taken away by Haryana police after the press conference last night. Singh had revealed that a few protestors, who mistook him for the misbehaving youths near the protesting site, picked him up to the camp where they forced him to falsely implicate Haryana police saying that they had plotted to kill four leaders.
The ‘farmer’ leaders also planted images of four protesting ‘farmer’ leaders in Yogesh Singh’s phone to strengthen their argument that the ‘masked man’ plotted to kill four leaders at the Singhu border. The Haryana police have also recovered photographs of four farmer leaders – Balbir Singh Rajewal, Baldev Singh Sirsa, Kuldeep Sandhu and Jagjeet Singh – from his mobile phone.
Interestingly, when the police had arrived at the press conference site last night, the farmer leaders had hesitated to hand over the ‘masked man’ to police. The had demanded the Haryana police not to take any action against him. They also asked the police not to treat him harshly, raising eyebrows about the reality of the alleged conspiracy of an attack against the so-called farmers.