Varanasi: Police team attacked, four cops injured

Police said that after the Crime Branch team arrested one of the accused — Rajan Rajbhar — and was taking him away with them, villagers started protesting. “In the melee, villagers caught two policemen — Sub-Inspector Kaushal Yadav and Constable Ved Prakash Rai — and starting thrashing them. They tied the constable to a tree and beat him up,” a police officer in Jansa said. After coming to know about the incident, a police team from Varanasi reached Harsos village, but they were also attacked as villagers pelted stones at them, said the officer.

According to police, the situation was brought under control when additional forces reached the spot and mild force was used to disperse the crowd. In the meantime, the arrested accused, Rajan Rajbhar, managed to escape.

Two more policemen – Station Officer of Rohaniya, Parshuram Tripathi, and a constable — were also injured in the mob attack. A police jeep was damaged by the villagers, police said.

S-I Yadav and constable Rai, who suffered serious injuries, are undergoing treatment at Banaras Hindu University’s Trauma Centre. Doctors said that their condition was stable. Police said that they are looking for Yadav’s pistol which went missing during the attack.

“The Crime Branch team from Jaunpur had arrived at Harsos village on Monday evening after obtaining arrest warrants against the two accused in the robbery case — Rajan Rajbhar and Arvind Rajbhar. On seeing the police force, Arvind managed to escape. Policemen were able to catch Rajan and were trying to take him away with them when villagers arrived at the spot. It has come to light that villagers reached the spot after rumours circulated that a gang of child-lifters had entered the”village,” said SHO of Jansa Police Station, Ramashish Ram.

Additional SP (Varanasi Rural) M P Singh said that the Jaunpur police team did not inform the local police station, Jansa, before conducting the raid in the village.

Circle Officer of Sadar, Abhishek Pandey, said that an FIR has been registered against 17 people. A total of 27 people have been detained for questioning and raids are still on to trace the culprits, said police.

Meanwhile, Jaunpur SP Ravi Shankar Chhabi said that they will order an inquiry to probe the role of other policemen during the attack. “What were the other policemen doing when the villagers attacked? We need to probe,” he said.