Thaindian News

Lucknow, Jan 6 (IANS) Yogendra Dohre alias Bhatia, a former leader of Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), who is prime accused in the lynching of a government engineer, Tuesday surrendered before a court after evading arrest for nearly two weeks. Hours later, the Uttar Pradesh police claimed another breakthrough in the murder by nabbing from Kannauj district the driver of BSP legislator Shekhar Tiwari, who is already in police custody.

Soon after his surrender, Dohre was remanded in police custody till Jan 19.

“We have obtained the remand,” Auraiya district police chief Nachiketa Jha told IANS, declining to elaborate further.

According to the police, Dohre appeared before Chief Judicial Magistrate Samarpal Singh around 12.30 p.m.

Dohre, a former BSP district president in Auraiya, was absconding after the Dec 24 murder of Public Works Department (PWD) engineer M.K. Gupta.

Having failed to arrest Dohre, the police Jan 3 announced a cash reward of Rs.2,500 on him.

PWD engineer M.K. Gupta was lynched in Auraiya of central Uttar Pradesh, about 250 km from here, allegedly after he refused to shell out Rs.5 million that legislator Tiwari had demanded as a “contribution” for Chief Minister Mayawati’s birthday bash Jan 15.

State police chief Vikram Singh has maintained that the engineer was killed because he refused to buckle under the legislator’s pressure to award contracts to his henchmen.

There are 10 accused in the case, including Tiwari. Two of them are yet to be arrested.

Tiwari’s driver Devendra was arrested from Kannauj, over 250 km from here. “Devendra is one of the 10 accused in the Gupta murder case. After his arrest from Chichauli village in Kannauj, he was brought to Auraiya district,” Sooreshwar Mishra, Auraiya’s additional superintendent of police, told IANS by phone.

Devendra would be brought before the court Wednesday.

According to the police, Devendra was the driver of one of the vehicles BSP legislator Tiwari and his aides used to abduct Gupta in Auraiya before lynching him.

The state police Saturday filed a charge sheet against the 10 accused.