6 policemen suspended in Tonk's tractor driver death case

Six policemen including a station house officer were suspended Tuesday for allegedly thrashing a tractor driver fatally in Rajasthan's Tonk district on May 28, a senior police officer said. Uniara Police Station in-charge Manish Charan, head constable Rajesh and constables Bhagwan Gurjar, Sanwara Jat, Ramavtar and Lakshmi Chand were suspended, Tonk district SP Chunaram Jat told PTI.

On Tuesday night, the 30-year-old driver, Bhajanlal, was allegedly transporting gravel, bajri, illegally when the police gave him a chase in Laxmipura under Nagar fort police station area. On Wednesday, two state legislators began a dharna alleging that Bhajanlal was beaten to death by the policemen. Police had, however, said it was a case of accidental death.

Congress MLA Harish Meena, who represents Deoli-Uniara constituency of Tonk district, began the dharna in Nagar fort with his demands and he was later joined by BJP Jahazpur MLA Gopi Chand Meena. They converted their dharna into an indefinite hunger strike on Saturday after their demands were not met.

Earlier, Tonk collector RC Dhenwal had announced a compensation of Rs. 13 lakh to the family of the deceased. He had also said murder charges would be slapped against the accused policemen and a CID probe would be carried out in the matter.

Following the state government's assurances, the two lawmakers called off their protest on Monday. However, they restarted their dharna on Tuesday accusing the administration of changing the members of a medical board conducting the postmortem of the body. The MLAs had demanded a government job for the driver's kin, Rs 25 lakh compensation, lodging murder cases against the policemen, their suspension and a CID probe.

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