By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad : The Andhra Pradesh director general of police Shyamsundar Prasad Yadav has said that the burning of a family to death in Vatoli village of Adilabad district was a case of murder and the police have almost solved the case. “We have got some vital clues and investigations have made considerable progress. We know who is involved in this case”, he said.
Though the DGP refused to confirm that some people involved in the case were already in the police net, the reliable police sources said that at least four people have admitted their involvement in the incident which shocked the entire state. The four persons have been identified as Audhoot, Venu, Diwakar and Bhagwant Rao. They also revealed the involvement of some other people and police were looking two of them Chandrabhan and Chandrakant. The police sources said that all these youth in late teens or mid twenties were members of Hindu Vahini, a front organization of Bajrang Dal.
“The detained persons are local people and we are trying to find out whether some outsiders or people from Maharashtra were also involved in the case”, a senior official told this correspondent.
It may be recalled here that six members of the family of Mahboob Khan were burnt in Vatoli village in the wee hours of Sunday, three days after the break out of communal riot in nearby Bhainsa town of Adilabad district. The victims include Mahboob Khan, his wife, daughter and three grand children.
Initially the officials had suggested that it could be a case of electric short circuit but it had infuriated the local Muslim community which demanded a CBI inquiry in to the incident. Even the survivors of the family had rejected the idea of this being an accident. “It is a clear case of murder”, a family member had said.
The theory of a crime was strengthened by the fact that a leg Mahboob Khan was missing and it was found elsewhere. His wife had some bones fractured while daughter’s mouth was gagged with a cloth.
Additional Director General of Police Abdul Khayyum Khan, who led special investigation team to probe the Vatoli and other incidents in Bhainsa said, “we know who has done it and why. But we have to investigate further to reveal if their was a deeper conspiracy behind it”, he said.
Khan said that there was a link between the communal riots in Bhainsa and the incident in Vatoli.
In connection with Bhainsa riots, 29 cases were booked in connection with the death of three persons and attack and burning of 70 institutions including shops, houses and other places. Denying the allegation of the BJP that the police was acting in a partial manner and only its members were arrested, Khan said, “The 129 people arrested so far belong to both the communities. But we are not looking at who belongs to which community. We are acting all those people who are involved in the violence”, he said.
Earlier in the day, about 50 workers of the BJP tried to stage a demonstration at the office of the DGP to protest against the arrests of its workers in Bhainsa. But the police took them in to custody.