A Muslim youth in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh was allegedly set on fire by four persons after he refused to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’. The police, however, after investigation, dismissed the theory, saying he actually set himself on fire and concocted the story after being egged on by “anti-social elements.”
“We have come across news regarding torching of a Muslim boy for not chanting religious slogans in Chandauli. The incident was investigated & found to be baseless,fabricated & malicious,” police said, threatening legal action against rumour-mongers on social media.
The youth suffered 45% burns, police said. The incident took place under the Sayad Raja police station area.
According to the victim, identified as 17-year-old Khalid Ansari, he had gone for a stroll to Dudhari bridge in the early hours of Sunday when four persons, who had their faces covered, “kidnapped” him and sprayed kerosene on him and set him ablaze.
“Two of them caught hold of my hands. They had their faces covered. One of them said ‘Sunil, spray kerosene on him and light a match. He will die on his own,” the youth said from his hospital bed in Varanasi where he is admitted to the burn ward of the Kabir Chauraha hospital.
Asked why he was attacked, he said: “They were asking me to say ‘Jai Sri Ram’. I did not say it.”
‘Anti-social elements’ tutored him: police
Chandauli SP Santosh Kumar Singh said “anti-social elements” had tutored the youth and his mother to add the ‘Jai Sri Ram’ chant part so that the issue gets more mileage. “It is a fake story,” Mr. Singh said.
According to Mr. Singh, the youth's statements over the incident have been inconsistent. The sequence of events and location of the incident changed in each narration, the police said.
Mr. Singh said the youth first told a police response vehicle team that he had gone for a run in the morning when near Manrajpur village he came across four persons who dragged him to the field and set him ablaze.
“When I spoke to him at the district hospital Chandauli, he told me a different location, Chateen village, in opposite direction to Manrajpur and 1.5-2 km away. That's what he told the doctor too,” said the officer.
While on his way to BHU hospital in Varanasi, the youth again changed his version, Mr. Singh said. This time he allegedly told the escorting sub-inspector that he was near Dudhari bridge when four persons came on a motorbike and forcibly took him to Bhatija Mode, where he was dragged to a field and set ablaze.
“It appears that he was tutored. We checked CCTV cameras on all three routes. But he was not found to be coming or going from any of those,” said Mr. Singh.
A private CCTV footage on the west side of the alleged place of incident had revealed that the youth was seen walking in a gully in a burned state at 5:15 a.m. “A local thought the youth had come from fishing so he had mud on himself. It was dark so he couldn't see clearly,” Mr. Singh said.
Around 1.5 km from the spot, the police team found the burnt clothes of the boy outside a shrine in Saraiya village near National Highway 2. A newspaper hawker then told the police that at 4:25 am, he saw the youth set himself on fire and run away from the spot.
“There was no third person in the scene. The hawker, who chased him for 100 metres on his cycle, thought the youth was crazy,” said Mr. Singh.
The incident could have been done to falsely implicate somebody as part of a planned conspiracy or out of superstition, he added.
