Youth dragged from police vehicle, lynched to death

In a shocking incident, a youth was allegedly lynched to death by a mob after being dragged from a police vehicle in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district, about 500 kilometres from here, on Tuesday.

According to the police sources here, the victim, identified as Rajendra Kashyap alias Tarashpal, a resident of Hathchoya village in the district, was involved in a drunken brawl with some other youths of his village on Monday night.

A police team, which reached the village upon being informed about the brawl, took Kashyap into custody on Tuesday, sources said.

The youths with whom Kashyap had an altercation, were, however, insisted on punishing him on the spot. They dragged Kashyap out of the police vehicle and battered him to death. The two cops, who were present there, could do nothing and remained mute spectators, sources said.

The entire incident was captured by someone on his cell phone and the video went viral on the social networking sites.

Tension prevailed in the village as the alleged perpetrators hailed from a different community and the family of the victim blocked the highway with hundreds of people demanding the arrest of accused.

Security personnel in strength had been deployed in the village as a precautionary measure and senior officials were present there.

The two cops, who were in the vehicle, had been suspended, police said.

Shamli police chief Ajai Kumar, however, denied that Kashyap was lynched to death in front of the cops and claimed that he had been beaten to death before the cops arrived in the village.

The opposition parties demanded resignation of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on ''moral ground'' saying that the latter had failed to check the spiralling crime graph in the state.

''Adityanath has no time for UP... he has failed miserably on the law and order front,'' said a senior Congress leader here.