BARWANI: A woman in riothit Sendhwa town of Madhya Pradesh on Friday said that her son and two of his friends have been booked for the Ram Navami violence of April 10 although they have been in jail in an attempt-tomurder case for a month.
The administration has even demolished a portion of her son Shahbaz’s house on April 13. Caught in what could turn out to be an embarrassing botch-up, police say they may cancel the FIR if they find there’s no basis to it.
The woman, Sakeena Bi, told TOI on Friday that their family didn’t receive any notice from the administration about encroachment or illegal construction. “They simply arrived one day, ordered us to remove our household goods and demolished the part of my son Shahbaz’s joint house after 15 minutes. They left Shabaz’s uncle's house intact. It has a common entrance and hall with ours,” she said.
A resident of Jogwara Road in Sendhwa, Sakeena Bi, told reporters that Shahbaz has been in judicial custody for more than a month. “He and two others — Fakhru and Rauf — have been booked in an FIR for arson during the April 10 riots. All three have been in jail,” she said, adding that the police and administration didn’t listen to her pleas when they razed the house.
House notice given, says official
Barwani SP Deepak Kumar Shukla said, FIR was registered on the basis of the statement of a complainant. “If evidence doesn’t corroborate the facts, the FIR will be disposed of,” he said, adding that FIR is “not the final process”. “Action will be taken only after conducting investigation as per rules,” he said.
“It is not yet clear if the riot accused identified by the complainant is the same person or another by same name. This will be clear during the investigation,” the SP said. Sendhwa tehsildar Manish Pandey said Shahbaz’s house was demolished after “due notice was served on the illegal construction”. “Shahbaz has been booked in several crimes.
The Barwani district magistrate had invoked NSA against him,” Pandey said, adding recent FIR against Shahbaz regarding riots has nothing to do with the demolition of his house. The municipality had already provided all the information about the house to revenue department, before violence broke out, he said.
