Red Fort violence: Delhi Police visits Baghpat and Shamli to identify suspects

The Delhi Police visited Baghpat and Shamli earlier this week districts to identify suspects allegedly involved in violence at the Red Fort during a farmers’ tractor rally on January 26, officials said on Wednesday.

UP Police sources said the Delhi Police team visited the two districts on Monday to investigate some people whose name came up during its investigation. The police suspect people from Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Saharanpur and Baghpat went to the UP-Delhi border and participated in the farmers’ protest against three agricultural laws the Centre pushed through Parliament last September.

A senior official confirmed that the law-enforcement team from Delhi was likely to visit Baghpat again on Thursday to collect information about the suspects.

The UP Police, however, said its counterparts from Delhi had not officially shared a list of suspects. Additional Director General, Law and Order, Prashant Kumar said the department had not received any list from the Delhi Police team. Superintendent of Police, Shamli, Sukirti Madhav said no Delhi Police official had met him so far to seek help with tracing or arresting people involved in the Red Fort violence.

Meanwhile, the Baghpat district administration has issued notices to six people, including former MLA Veerpal Singh Rathi under section 107/116 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Under the section, people seen as possible threats to peace are asked to execute bonds to maintain law and order. The notices were issued based on a police report.

“We requested the administration to bind down six persons, including Veerpal Singh Rathi, because it is suspected that they, through speeches, can provoke people protesting against the farm laws. There is a fear that because of their provocation, protests can turn into violence,” Baraut Station House Officer (SHO) Ajay Kumar Sharma said on Wednesday.

The notices were put up at the residences of all six people, asking them to appear in the sub-divisional magistrate’s court in Baraut on February 2. “In the notices, the administration told us that they are binding us down for a year and asked for two sureties of Rs 2 lakh and also a personal bond of the same amount. I did not appear in court on the stipulated day and decided to challenge the order in a higher court,” said Rathi, who had won the 2012 Assembly election from Baghpat’s Chaprauli seat.

He added, “On January 28, I got a call from Delhi Police asking me to come to record a statement. I did not go because I was busy with some work. Delhi Police is trying to falsely implicate me in the case. I have come to know through sources that Delhi Police has named me in two cases.”