Lucknow, December 24
In an outrageous incident, an executive engineer of the Uttar Pradesh public works department (PWD) was brutally beaten to death in Aurraiya district of the state, reportedly by none else than local BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari and his supporters in the wee hours of Wednesday.
Later in the evening, DGP Vikram Singh, in a hurriedly called press conference, claimed the BSP MLA had been arrested. Ironically, it was only two days ago that the police chief had drawn a rosy picture of the state's law and order situation.
The cause for the BSP MLA's anger against the executive engineer, Manoj Kumar Gupta, was his alleged refusal to cough up money for UP Chief Minister Mayawati's birthday bash next month.
According to Shashi Gupta, wife of the deceased engineer, two unidentified men entered their house in Gail Vihar in Dibiapur at around 1 am and started beating up her husband.
“When I protested and tried to raise the alarm, they slapped me and locked me in the bathroom and continued beating my husband,” she told reporters in Aurraiya.
When Gupta was badly injured and almost unconscious, the BSP MLA reportedly arrived at the scene. He along with his men allegedly dumped the seriously injured engineer outside the police station. The cops rushed the engineer to a hospital where he was declared brought dead at around 3 am.
The slain engineer’s brother and father accused the BSP MLA of repeatedly harassing Gupta to pay a sum of Rs 10 lakh as contribution to the Chief Minister's birthday fund.
According to an official release, the Chief Minister has ordered a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the deceased’s kin and a government job to his wife. Later, PWD engineers in the state proceeded on an indefinite strike. Uttar Pradesh Engineers Association president AK Farouqui declared that if the government failed in taking stern action against the legislator in a day or two, engineers of all government departments would join the strike.
A release issued by the state government termed the killing of the engineer as “unfortunate” and that orders had been given to take punitive action against the guilty.
A case was registered under Sections 342, 323, 457, 364, 302 of the IPC and Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
