india

Updated: Oct 16, 2017 14:08 IST

A sexagenarian died after a police team allegedly thrashed him as well as his newly married son and daughter-in-law in north Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district.

Family members said Kant Lal Mahto, 62, succumbed to his injuries after being “beaten up brutally” by policemen at Bhorha village in Katra police station area of Muzaffarpur district, 70 km north of Patna, on Sunday morning.

Mahto’s son Guddu had married a girl of the same village against the wishes of her parents two days ago, the family members said. The police had gone to the village to inquire into the case of kidnapping lodged by the girl’s parents, they added.

In an FIR registered in connection with the incident, Mahto’s wife Sharda Devi has named Katra station house officer (SHO) Ratna Kumar, sub-inspector Nand Kumar Paswan and other policemen as accused. “All the policemen were in an inebriated condition when they reached our house. They took my son and his newly married wife out of the house. When my husband objected to it, they beat him up mercilessly. He received head injuries and died on the spot,” Devi alleged in the FIR.

Muzaffarpur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vivek Kumar has set up a committee to inquire into the incident. “The committee will submit its reports within a fortnight. We are waiting for the autopsy report. If it is ascertained in the report that the cause of the death was beating, appropriate action will be taken against the guilty,” said Kumar.

The SSP, however, added that the police team had gone to Bhora village to arrest Guddu, against whom a case of kidnapping a girl had been registered. “The police team has recovered the girl and arrested her alleged abductor,” he said.

Meanwhile, a police team, which went to the village in the evening to take possession of Mahto’s body and send it to a government hospital for autopsy, was attacked by an angry mob on Sunday evening. The mob not only chased away the police team but also blocked the national highway-57 for many hours in protest. Though, the blockade was lifted at 11pm, the mob allowed the police to send the body for post-mortem examination only in the wee hours of Monday.