An FIR has been registered against four policemen in connection with the death of a 28-year-old Dalit man who died soon after being apprehended from a gambling den in Lucknow’s Vikas Nagar on Friday night.
The family of the deceased, Aman Gautam, alleged that he died as a result of a severe beating by the police in custody.
Angered by the incident, the man’s family and others staged a protest, refusing to perform the final rites till action is taken against the officials involved.
Vikas Nagar police station in-charge Vipin Singh said the FIR was filed against Shailendra Singh, head constable, and three unidentified cops under Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) Act on the complaint of the deceased’s wife Roshini Gautam.
In her complaint, Roshni alleged that her husband was sitting at Ambedkar Park in Vikas Nagar on Friday night when a police team reached there and started thrashing and abusing Gautam, who fell unconscious and was taken to a hospital by the cops.
She further alleged that head constable Shailendra Singh was the main person behind the assault on her husband.
No arrests have been made in the case so far, he added.
The police denied the allegations of torture, stating that the postmortem found no deep injuries and that the death occurred due to “cardiogenic shock”.