Mob violence in Basti after ABVP leader shot dead

An Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leader was shot dead in Basti’s Kaptanganj town on Wednesday morning, sparking mob violence in the area, the police said.

Two bike-borne men opened indiscriminate fire on Aditya Narayan Tiwari alias Kabir Tiwari, 27, who was also former students’ union president of APN College, when he was overseeing construction of a boundary wall at a plot owned by him at Ranjeet crossing.

Policemen chased and caught the alleged killers from the crime scene.

Following the murder, a mob vandalised a police outpost, set afire some chairs, damaged Dial 100 vans and six buses, the police said, adding the mob also blocked the road with an ambulance carrying Tiwari’s body.

A police officer said personal rivalry was the reason for the killing of the student leader, against whom several criminal cases were lodged in different police stations.

Superintendent of police Pankaj Kumar said, “The two youths involved in the murder have been arrested with three country made pistols. CCTV footage showed them arriving on the scene and fleeing after firing. Rivalry between two sides is the reason (for the murder). The arrested youth have accepted their crime, saying that they were continuously humiliated and beaten up by Kabir. When no action was taken against him they themselves decided to take revenge. However, (Basti) MP Harish Dwivedi has raised suspicion about the involvement of more people and we will probe this aspect. Also, those who indulged in violence are being identified and will be acted against. We are waiting for his father to come with a complaint following which FIR will be lodged.”

As bullets hit him in the abdomen and the left hand, Tiwari was rushed to the district hospital in a serious condition from he was referred to Lucknow but died on the way at Harraya in Basti, triggering tension in the area where a mob also forced the closure of shops, allegedly in the presence of the police . Hundreds of BJP leaders and students surrounded the local police station and staged a sit-in after the murder. They blamed police for negligence. Local MP Harish Dwivedi and MLA Daya Ram Chowdhary met SP Pankaj Kumar and district magistrate Mala Srivastava and other officials to enquire about the matter.

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