Shopkeeper killed, action taken against cops for negligence in matter that led to murder

A 26-year-old trader was allegedly killed at his shop outside Gaholia village in Kanpur Dehat district, police said Friday.

Meanwhile, the station officer (Rura), Dharmendra Malik, was stripped off his charge and beat in-charge, Rajiv Kumar, a Sub-Inspector, placed under suspension over their alleged negligence in the matter that led to the shopkeeper's murder.

The victim, Vimal Tiwari, had lodged a complaint against the village head for acquiring 'Gram Samaj' land, adjacent to his shop and the matter was unresolved, they said.

BJP MLA Pratibha Shukla questioned police functioning, claiming that she had been in touch with the authorities regarding the complaint but to no avail.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Keshav Kumar Choudhary admitted that Tiwari had made a complaint against former village head Vijay Singh but the matter was resolved by revenue officials after inspecting the disputed land site and examining the documents.

A case of murder has been registered at Rura police station against former village head Vijay Singh, his family members – Ankit Singh, Ajay Singh alias Pintu, Shyam Singh alias Bablu and two others – but no arrest has been made so far, police said.

Vimal Tiwari alias Ashu, who deals in building material, was killed on Thursday at his shop outside the Gaholia village in Rura, Kanpur Dehat.

His body was recovered on Thursday noon when his brother, Dipak Tiwari, went there to deliver him lunch, police said, adding a couple of injury marks on his head suggested that he was murdered after being repeatedly hit on the head with some object.

The SP said the exact cause of death would be ascertained after the postmortem, which is to be conducted later on Friday.

The autopsy could not be conducted on Thursday as the aggrieved family members and their supporters refused to hand over the body to police till late in the evening.

BJP MLA Pratibha Shukla said: ''There is grief in my heart because the victim was continuously calling me and I personally apprised the officials concerned about the matter so that this land dispute could be resolved in some way." She further said the government intended to resolve matters related to caste and land disputes. "I can't understand what is going on here in Kanpur Dehat district...this boy kept trying but no help was provided to him," she told media.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)