Jaipur, July 23 (IANS) The Rajasthan Police on Monday formed a high-level team to probe why policemen took three hours to reach a hospital only four kilometres away with a badly injured man accused of smuggling cows.
The panel will also investigate whether the policemen callously stopped on the way to the hospital to have tea while Rakbar alias Akbar lay bleeding in their vehicle and was eventually declared dead by doctors.
Director General of Police O.P. Galhotra said the team will find out why so much time was wasted in transporting Rakbar after he was beaten up in Alwar district on Saturday.
The team will include senior officers N.R.K. Reddy, P.K. Singh, Hemant Priyadarshi and Mahendra Singh Chaudhary.
The policemen apparently reached the site of the attack at 1 a.m. but the victim reached the hospital only at 4 a.m., said a police official.
It has been alleged that the policemen stopped on the way to have tea.
Naval Sharma, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Gau Raksha cell chief in Ramgarh, quoted the FIR to say that the police reached the site at 12.41 a.m. and the victim was taken by them by 1 a.m.
However, surprisingly, the police reached the hospital at 4 am. The post-mortem report says the victim died at 3.40 a.m.
A social worker in the region, Vijay Kumar, told IANS that Akbar and Aslam were taking bovines from the fields at midnight. When the animals cried out, some villagers came out and thrashed Akbar.
As it was raining heavily, Akbar fell on the muddy field and his companion Aslam escaped. By then, police reached the spot after being alerted about the attack.
However, as the victim was covered in mud, the police refused to take him in their vehicle and asked the villagers to clean him.
The villagers poured water on him. Dharmendra, who was later taken as an accused by the police, brought clothes from his house.
Vijay Kumar says the policemen were drunk and they too might have beaten him as the victim had earlier records of cow smuggling.
According to him, when Akbar died, police came to the village to arrest the witnesses to save their skin.
The cows, meanwhile, were shifted to a ‘gaushala’ at 3.26 a.m. in a three-wheeler — just before the man died.
Alwar Superintendent of Police Rajendra Singh told the media: “We will investigate the matter thoroughly and take action against the accused.”
