Bulandshahr, a town in the western Uttar Pradesh’s sugarcane belt, witnessed clashes between Hindutva activists and the state police on December 3.
- The activists allegedly found carcasses of cows strewn across farms in Mahav village near Bulandshahr.
- The clash began as a mere skirmish at around 11 am when the activists carried the remains of the dead cow to the nearby police sub-station in Chingravathi village. They wanted the police to file an FIR against the alleged cow slaughter.
- However, the situation soon escalated into mob violence when miscreants in the crowd started attacking the police personnel with stones and firearms.
- By this time, some other policemen had already come from the bigger police station in Shyana village to control the mob.
- In the violence that followed after noon, an inspector-rank police officer, Subodh Kumar Singh succumbed to his bullet injury, the post-mortem report confirmed.
- Singh was also part of the team that probed the 2015 Mohammad Akhlaq’s lynching in Dadri, UP.
- The mob set the chowki on fire. And many other police vehicles were also torched.
- Meanwhile, a few Hindu-right groups also blocked the highway passing through the Chingravati village.
- While at least four other policemen were reportedly hurt, 21-year-old Sumit also died in the violence.
- Many in the area said Sumit was a BJP activist, but some reports claimed that the police believed he was only a bystander who got caught in the violence.
- Incidentally, the uproar over cow slaughter has occurred at a time when lakhs of Muslims across India have gathered in Bulandshahr for Tablighi Jamaat’s Ijtema (religious gathering).
- The attack on police happened around 30 kilometres away from the site of the ijtema that ended on December 3 peacefully.
- By evening, the UP government deployed security forces in and around the town. Top police officials are camping in Bulandshahr to prevent any further aggravation of the incident.
- The police claimed that the situation is under control but appealed to the public to desist from spreading inflammatory rumours floating around on social media.
- Two FIRs have been filed. One related to the alleged cow slaughter, and the other, against more than 100 people who attacked the police at the Chingravathi chowki.
- A Special Investigation Team has been constituted to probe the matter. The police, meanwhile, arrested two people and detained four others in connection with the violence.