The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought Uttar Pradesh police chief H C Awasthy’s response to a complaint questioning the genuineness of the exchange of fire in which gangster Mukhtar Ansari’s alleged aide, Rakesh Pandey, was gunned down on August 9, the complainant said.
Social activist and lawyer Nutan Thakur, the complainant, said Awasthy has been asked to respond within six weeks and NHRC has fixed the next hearing in the matter on October 23.
Thakur said she reported the matter to NHRC on August 10 following allegations of Rakesh Pandey’s father, Baldutt Pandey, that his son was picked up from his house in Lucknow a few hours before he was claimed to have been killed in the exchange of fire. Baldutt Pandey also stated that most of the cases against his son had ended and they did not even know when a 50,000 reward was declared on his head.
Thakur said the sequence of events leading to the killing raised many questions. “The case in Audyogik Thana of Prayagraj in which a reward has been declared on Rakesh does not even mention him as an accused... Besides, STF [Special Task Force] sleuths claimed that the Innova car in which Rakesh Pandey was travelling hit a tree while police chased him but there is no dent on it.”
Rakesh Pandey, Ansari, and another gangster were accused of killing Bharatiya Janata Party leader Krishnanand Rai in 2005 but were acquitted in July 2019. He had at least 10 criminal cases registered against him between 1993 and 2012.
