BHOPAL: The SHO of a police station in MP’s Damoh has been removed for allegedly sitting on information that a group of men had threatened to murder a former sarpanch. The killers had brazenly announced 10 days in advance that they would kill him but the cops did nothing.
On July 1, the killers used a JCB to ram ex-sarpanch Manoharlal Gutti Sharma’s car off the road and then shot him dead. The murder sent shockwaves in the region.
“We learnt about some irregularities in policing and the SHO was removed,” Damoh SP D R Teniwar told local media on Sunday.
Hata SHO Manish Mishra and another officer, Pradeep Choudhary, have been attached to the police lines. Sources said that both of them did not take the threat by the accused to kill Sharma seriously. Also, police were not deployed in the village although trouble was on for a long time.
A feud over property and an old election dispute was on for a long time between two influential families of the village, said the SP.
On July 1, Sharma was going to attend a wedding, along with around half a dozen family members, when the assailants struck in a small village named Kumihar, around 40km from Damoh and 300km from Bhopal.
Former sarpanch was killed in front of family
They used a JCB to ram Sharma’s Bolero, which “rolled like a ball” from the impact, said an eyewitness. The assailants didn’t bother with the rest of Sharma’s family and went after him. “Uncle started running and they fired at him.
Half a dozen people hit him with lathis till he fell down. With one foot on his chest, a man fired a bullet at his head. It all happened before our eyes even as we pleaded with them not to kill him,” said the victim’s nephew. A police team set up to investigate the murder has arrested three suspects -- Madhu Sharma, Dayaram Sharma and Saroj Sharma, police said.
