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Lucknow’s Banthra jolted: Youth thrashed to death over electricity dispute
He got into a confrontation with some youths when he reached a substation and insisted that power supply be restored in his area first, say police
A 20-year-old youth was thrashed to death by a mob in Banthra village of Lucknow on Sunday night allegedly over a dispute related to power supply restoration in his area that was facing an outage for three days. He got into a confrontation with some youths when he reached a substation and insisted that supply be restored in his area first, said police.
The deceased was identified as Hrithik Pandey of Banthra. An FIR was registered on Monday against 15 people and the police were raiding their possible hideouts, said Tej Swaroop, DCP (south zone).
The victim’s father, Babban Pandey, who works as a property dealer, lodged an FIR alleging that Avnish Singh, Himanshu Singh, Priyanshu Singh, Pratyush Singh, Shani Singh, and 10 unidentified others beat up his son to death. According to the police, the youth died before he was taken to the Lokbandhu Hospital here.
“An FIR under Section 103 (murder) and other relevant sections of the BNS has been registered at Banthra police station. Three teams have been formed to nab the accused,” said the DCP.
The victim’s family accused the police of negligence and staged a protest at the hospital. Members of the Kisan Union also joined in, demanding arrest of accused. The body could be taken for a post-mortem examination, when officers pacified the protestors.
Babban Pandey said there was no electricity in the village for the last three days, but it was restored around 10pm on Sunday, only in one locality where the named accused lived.
“Power supply was not restored in our area and I sent Hrithik to inquire about the same. He went to the substation and urged the staff to restore supply to his area,” said Babban.
As per the villagers, power workers were trying to fix the fault where Himanshu Singh, Avinash Singh and their friends were also present. Hrithik told workers to restore supply to his area first. On this, Himanshu asked workers not to do anything, saying it could lead to an outage again in his area.
“A dispute ensued between Hrithik and one of the accused as both insisted that supply be given to their area first. After this, Hrithik returned home,” said the victim’s father.
“Later, the group of youths reached our home and started thrashing our domestic help Maiku Rawat and then Hrithik,” he alleged.
“They also attacked me and my other son Abhishek,” he added. Injured Babban and Abhishek fell on the ground and the accused fled. They were admitted to Lokbandhu Hospital where Hrithik was declared brought dead.
The victim’s family said the electricity department filed a complaint against Hrithik, after which the police raided their house, but did not take any action on the complaint filed against the accused.
There was a power crisis in Banthra village for the last three days as three circuits of the aerial bunch conductor coming out of the transformer were burnt. Powermen replaced wires of two circuits, but when the third one was replaced, it got burnt again. Executive engineer Avnish said there was a problem in lighting the village due to the quality of ABC but the power problem was resolved after the incident.
