After a lull, reports of heinous crimes have once again started emerging from western Uttar Pradesh. After the gruesome murder of two workers of a political party in Sambhal on May 19, two unidentified bodies of girls were found in a sugarcane field in a village in Shamli district on Wednesday, police said.
‘No evidence of rape’
Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal told The Hindu that a farmer of Jaganpura village discovered the bodies when he went to irrigate the sugarcane field on Wednesday evening. “He called the police. The post-mortem report says the girls were murdered between the night of May 18 and May 19. There are head injuries that suggest they were killed with a heavy, blunt object. There is no evidence of rape,” he said.
Mr. Jaiswal said four teams had been formed to trace the antecedents of the deceased. “We have questioned the locals but no one has come forward to identify them. We are in touch with neighbouring districts such as Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, and Panipat in Haryana to check if a missing person report has been lodged there.
In another incident an alleged cow smuggler was killed and a constable was seriously injured during an encounter in Saharanpur on Wednesday night. According to an official release, the police responded to an informer’s tip off that four persons were indulging in cow slaughter in village Ghanamandi.
According to the release, a team of five policemen surrounded the area. The smugglers fired at the police but constable Vatan Pawar caught hold of one of the smugglers. The constable was attacked with a knife three times. The police fired in self-defence, injuring one of the smugglers.
The four managed to escape. Later, during the combing operation, one of the smugglers named Virasat was found lying in a sugarcane field around 2.30 a.m. on Thursday. He was taken to the district hospital where he was declared brought dead.
The injured constable was referred to Dehradun where his situation is critical, according to Dinesh Kumar P, Senior Superintendent of Police, Saharanpur. A case has been registered.
