Hours after an Apple executive was shot dead by a police officer in Lucknow for not stopping during a routine check, Uttar Pradesh irrigation minister Dharampal Singh on Saturday tried to blame the victim by saying the state government made no mistake in encounters.
“Bullets are hitting only those who are criminals. ‘Gundaraj’ during Samajwadi Party's regime is making noise, everything else is normal. We will not compromise when it comes to criminals,” Singh told ANI.
The minister’s statement was in contradiction to chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s stand that the incident was not an encounter.
Victim Vivek Tiwari was travelling in his car with a female colleague in Gomti Nagar Extension on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday when the officer on patrol duty signaled him to stop for a routine check. However, 'sensing trouble', Tiwari tried to flee, following which he was shot by police officer Prashant Chaudhary.
Tiwari lost control of the car due to the firing and hit the police officer's motorcycle parked next to his vehicle, before ramming an electricity poll a few metres away. He was rushed to Lohia Hospital, where he succumbed to injuries.
Senior officers of the police department rushed to the spot as soon as they came to know about the incident and an FIR was also lodged against the accused officers, following which Chaudhary and Sandeep Kumar were arrested.
Tiwari's postmortem report also confirmed that he died due to a firearm injury from a bullet on the left side of the chin. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Speaking to media after his arrest, the accused police officer said that the deceased had tried to run him over with his car. "I tried to stop the car as it was quite late but the driver did not stop. After which he tried to run the car over me. Ultimately, I had to fire. My bike was damaged completely in the incident."
ADG law and order Anand Kumar admitted that the law had been violated. "If the situation demanded firing of a bullet, it could have been fired at the tyre, even then it was not right to do so. This is a shameful incident for us," he said, adding that the police was not trying to play down the case.
The Opposition has also latched onto the incident to attack the BJP government in the state. A delegation of Congress workers arrived at the deceased's house on directions of UPCC chief Raj Babbar.
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