india

Updated: Nov 04, 2019 23:27 IST

Rajasthan Chief minister Ashok Gehlot has directed the home and police department to take action against its personnel responsible for the shoddy probe into the Pehlu Khan lynching case, a senior government official said Monday.

“On Sunday, the CM in a meeting with senior officials of home and police department directed that action be taken as per the Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) report which had exposed multiple lapses in the police probe and blamed officers for shoddy investigation,” the officer said on condition of anonymity.

Director general of police Bhupendra Singh said that an enquiry against the police officers concerned is underway.

“The vigilance department is doing an enquiry against the policemen responsible after which further action would be taken,” Singh said.

On August 14, Alwar’s additional district judge Sarita Swami acquitted the six accused in the Pehlu Khan lynching case and gave them the “benefit of the doubt” after which the state government had taken a decision to file an appeal against the verdict.

The court acquitted the six accused -- Vipin Yadav, 19, Ravindra Yadav, 29, Kalu Ram Yadav, 44, Dayanand Yadav, 47, Yogesh Khati, 30, and Bhim Rathi, 28 -- and explained why the prosecution’s case did not work.

On August 17, the state government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the reasons behind the acquittal of the six suspects. The SIT in its report on September 4 cited multiple lapses in the police probe and blamed officers for a “shoddy” investigation. The 82-page report pointed out loopholes by each of the four investigating officers.

On April 1, 2017, Khan was attacked by a mob on the Delhi-Jaipur highway near Behror in Rajasthan’s Alwar district while he was transporting cattle from a market in Jaipur to his home in Nuh, Haryana. He named six people as his attackers in his dying declaration, but all of them were cleared by the police on the basis of call records and witnesses.

Police then charged a new set of nine people – three of them minors – on the basis of videos of the attack. The six adults were cleared by the court but the government has said it will appeal the verdict in the high court. The trial of minors was held separately at a juvenile court.