Akhilesh claims Sambhal victim's kin threatened by UP police, seeks Supreme Court intervention

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to take cognisance of allegations that the Uttar Pradesh Police threatened the kin of a Sambhal violence victim and took their thumb impression on a blank piece of paper.

In a post on X, Yadav attached a media report in which the family members of Naeem, one of the four men killed in the violence, claimed that on the night of November 25 -- a day after violence erupted in Sambhal -- around 20 policemen came to their house and warned them against talking to the media.

Naeem's brother Tasleem also alleged that the police personnel took his thumb impression on a blank piece of paper.

"Threatening someone and taking their thumb impression on a blank paper is also a crime. The honourable Supreme Court should take immediate cognisance and punish all those responsible for this incident by taking punitive action against the guilty government and administration," Yadav said in his post in Hindi.

"Only the court will ensure justice," he said.

Tasleem, according to the report, claimed that he was illiterate and did not know what the police would write on the blank paper on which his thumb impression was taken.

Sambhal police has so far not reacted to Yadav's allegation.

Naeem, Bilal, Noman, and Kaif were killed in a violent fracas that broke out in Sambhal's Kot area on Sunday.

Naeem, a resident of the Kot Garvi area, ran a sweets shop, Bilal, a resident of the Hayatnagar Police Station area, had a clothes shop in the local supermarket, and Kaif, from an area under the Nakhasa Police Station area, sold cosmetics in a weekly market.

Naeem's brother Tasleem had earlier said he was out buying groceries when he was killed.

"He was going to take refined oil and 'maida,' when the violence broke out. He did not even know about it. Police killed him," Tasleem said.

Naeem is survived by two sons and two daughters.

Tension had been brewing in Sambhal since November 19 when the mosque was first surveyed on the court's orders following a petition claiming that a Harihar temple had stood at the site.

On Sunday, a large group of people gathered near the mosque and started shouting slogans as the survey team resumed its work. They then clashed with security personnel, torched vehicles, and pelted stones.

According to official figures, four people died in the violent confrontation.

Police have arrested 25 people so far and registered seven FIRs, naming the Samajwadi Party's Sambhal MP Zia-ur-Rehman Barq, and Sohail Iqbal -- son of the party's local MLA Iqbal Mehmood -- and 2,750 unidentified individuals as accused.