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‘We gave MP a diamond, got back ashes’
Keshav Dev is an enraged man. His son, 32-year-old IPS officer Narendra Kumar Singh, was mowed down by a tractor-trolley carrying illegally quarried stones in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district on Thursday. But the state government wants him to be quiet.
Keshav Dev is an enraged man. His son, 32-year-old IPS officer Narendra Kumar Singh, was mowed down by a tractor-trolley carrying illegally quarried stones in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district on Thursday. But the state government wants him to be quiet.
“The chief minister (Shivraj Singh Chauhan) and other officials called me and asked me to keep quiet, promising justice for my son,” Dev said. “But almost immediately, the government is indulging in doublespeak. The home minister (Uma Shankar Gupta) and senior police officials have issued statements that it was an accident and not a planned murder.”
But Dev, a sub-inspector of police in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, is not giving up. In a telephonic interview with HT from his hometown Aligarh in UP, the bereaved father, who is in his fifties, said he would "leave no stone unturned" to get justice for his son.
“We gave Madhya Pradesh a diamond, but got back only ashes (mortal remains). Did we deserve this?” Dev asked.
He also alleged that the local police was under tremendous pressure not to take any action against the mining mafia. They all feared for their lives, he said.
“My son had asked the local police station to barricade the road and post police force after he learnt that the tractor was on its way. However, they had only barricaded the road and not deployed any personnel,” Dev alleged.
“This allowed the driver to turn the vehicle back and go on to mow down Narendra during the chase. All these factors should be investigated,” he said. Singh’s wife Madhurani Tewatia, a 2008-batch IAS officer herself, is expecting their first child on March 21. Speaking to HT on Saturday, the 30-year-old vowed to complete her husband’s unfinished work.
“My husband sacrificed his life for the nation. I’m proud of his courage and martyrdom. The feelings are so intense that they can’t be expressed in words,” she told HT on phone.
