UP police face yet another 'fake' encounter charge

The killing of youth in an alleged encounter by the police in Uttar Pradesh's Jhansi district, about 300 kilometres from here, sparked a major controversy with the family members of the victim and the opposition parties terming the encounter as ''fake'' and demanding registration of murder case against the cops.

The youth, identified as Pushpendra Yadav, a resident of Karguan Khurd village in the district, was gunned down in an alleged armed encounter with the police earlier this week. The cops alleged that Pushpendra had earlier attacked a police party and looted a car and some cell phones.

On Tuesday, a large number of people from the village and the nearby areas staged a demonstration to protest the killing and demanded that the cops be booked for murder.

A magisterial probe was ordered into the incident, sources said.

Additional director general of police (ADG) P.V Ramashstry claimed that an impartial probe was being conducted into the incident. ''The allegations levelled by the family members are also being investigated,'' he said here on Wednesday.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, who met the family members of the victim, accused the BJP regime of targetting members of particular communities (Yadav, Muslims).

He said that his party would launch a statewide agitation to protest the encounters during the saffron party regime. Congress too has demanded a CBI probe in all the encounters that had taken place since the formation of the BJP government in the state.

Around 90 ''criminals'' have been killed and over 1200 others injured in the encounters since Yogi Adityanath took charge of the state in March 2017. Many of the encounters were being probed by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).