E-Paper
Assam BJP leader murder: Husband files FIR against IGP Debaraj Upadhyaya
A day after the dead body of the BJP leader was recovered from Goalpara’s Matia area, the police arrested the prime accused identified as Hasanur Islam. Upon interrogation, Islam admitted that he killed Junali over a fight
A first information report (FIR) was filed against inspector general of police (IGP) Debaraj Upadhyay, Assam, by the husband of a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Junali Nath, whose dead body was found near NH-17 on Sunday night, alleging the officer is trying to protect the murderer.
He also called the investigation of the case by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Assam doubtful.
A day after the dead body of the BJP leader was recovered from Goalpara’s Matia area, the police on Monday arrested prime accused Hasanur Islam. Upon interrogation, Islam admitted that he killed Junali over a fight. IGP (CID) Upadhyay had told the media that the victim was having an affair with the accused.
According to Upadhyay, Islam and Junali were engaged in an extramarital affair for more than two years, but recently, Islam married another girl which led to a fight between Junali and him.
“Islam confessed that on Sunday evening, Junali came to meet him. He picked her up in his car in Matia and their argument started. She was asking about his marriage, and he punched her in the face several times. He dumped her near NH-17 after realising that she had died,” Upadhyay said.
Also Read: Centre assigns probe into Assam woman police officer’s death to CBI
Junali’s husband, Chandra Kumar Nath on Tuesday, lodged an FIR at Matia police station against Upadhyay while expressing doubt on the process of investigation and said that he is not convinced.
“The IGP conducted a press conference and detailed a story where he claimed that my wife had an affair with the murderer and cited the alleged affair as the reason behind the murder. But they didn’t explain how he killed her while driving the vehicle,” Chandra Kumar wrote.
He further claimed that the extramarital affair angle, in this case, is not convincing as no supporting evidence is shown. Moreover, it is disrespectful to accuse a deceased woman this way, according to him.
“CID officer’s claims are questionable and doubtful. It seems they are trying to dilute the charges against the murderer. They jumped to a conclusion without thorough investigation,” he claimed.
Chandra further asked the police department to issue an apology for disgracing a woman by producing false and incomplete information before the media.
However, no response from the police department came on this FIR. HT tried to reach out to the director general of Assam police GP Singh and Goalpara superintendent of police Rakesh Reddy, but there was no response.
Junali was secretary of BJP’s Goalpara district committee and as per reports, Islam is a ward member of Congress in Goalpara’s Matia.
Also Read: Woman BJP leader in Assam was murdered by boyfriend: Police
Chandra on Monday told the media that at around 4:30pm on Sunday, his wife left home for some personal reasons. After 7pm he tried calling her but her phone was not reachable after which he reached out to the police. The police found the dead body around 12am.
Upadhyay on Monday said that at 7:13pm Islam switched her mobile off. After her death, police examined the call records and traced him, he said.
Doctors during the post-mortem found that some hard object was used to kill her but Islam told police that he punched Junali on her face till she lost consciousness. However, there was no sign of rape, as claimed by a few supporters of Junali, according to the police.
