Two police constables were suspended on Thursday for turning bystanders during a brawl between a group of lawyers.
The clash took place on Monday night at a dhaba outside the Allahabad railway junction, within a stone’s throw of Shahganj police station. The lawyers, who had gone on a round of pre-Holi merrymaking, ended up inebriated. What followed were arguments, fisticuffs and shooting.
According to a police officer, lawyers Pankaj Shukla, Vivek Singh and a student, Ashish Pandey, had got into an argument. In the brawl that followed, Shukla and Pandey were injured. Then someone fired a shot from a pistol, which caught Singh in the jaw. All three had to be hospitalised.
Later, after a flurry of FIRs and counter-FIRs were filed, constables Veer Malkhan Dubey and Devendra Singh, who were in the area, were suspended for dereliction of duty.
Shukla is the son of DP Shukla, deputy superintendent of police, Varanasi. Pandey is the nephew of Vishnu Pratap Pandey, former vice president of Allahabad high court bar association.