Bulandshahr mob assaulted cop with axe, stones before shooting him, says police

Bulandshahr: Days after the brutal killing of a Uttar Pradesh police officer by an enraged mob following cow slaughter in Bulandshahr, chilling details of the mob brutality has emerged with the arrest of the main accused, who police claim had shot the officer.

The accused, Prashant Natt who was working as an Ola driver till about six months ago had gone absconding with his family soon after the crime. He was finally arrested on Thursday from the residence of his in-laws in Greater Noida and has reportedly confessed to killing inspector Subodh Kumar Singh.

According to the police, inspector Singh had been attacked with stones, sticks and an axe before he was shot dead with his licenced revolver.  Stones were pelted at his jeep when his fellow officers tried to take him to the hospital, forcing them to retreat. Later the mob even attempted to set the jeep ablaze but the police managed to avert the situation. Singh’s postmortem report said he was shot at a point-blank range above the left eyebrow, and he had several fractures in his hand and legs as a result of the assault, the police informed.

It may be recalled that Subodh Kumar Singh was attacked by a mob of around 400 people when he and his team had gone to a village to defuse tension after cow carcasses were found in a forest. 

The police have named 27 people in the FIR or first information report and arrested more than 20 persons, including an Army man in the case. But Prashant Natt was not named in the FIR

Senior Superintendent of Police, Bulandshahr Prabhakar Chaudhary, however, said that the accused’s name was not revealed deliberately as they did not want to alert him. 

“We kept it under wraps as we didn’t want to alert him. His role became clear after the special investigation team (SIT) analysed the video footage, collected evidence, spoke to eyewitnesses and those who have been arrested,” Chaudhary was quoted speaking to NDTV.

Meanwhile, the accused’s brother has claimed that Natt is being made a scapegoat by the police since they haven’t been able to arrest the mastermind behind the inspectors’ killing.