Police arrests 4 more in Rae Bareli Dalit lynching case, cautions against giving caste-based colour to incident

The police have arrested four more people in connection with alleged lynching of a 40-year-old Dalit man by villagers who mistook him for a thief in Raebareli district of Uttar Pradesh.

With the recent arrests, the total number of arrests made so far in the case has risen to 9. The incident took place on the night of October 2 in Jamunapur village.

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According to Superintendent of Police Yashveer Singh, the victim,
Hariom Valmiki, a resident of Fatehpur district, was brutally attacked with sticks, belts, and rods by locals after suspicions arose that he was attempting to commit theft.

Singh said Hariom appeared to be mentally unstable and was unable to communicate clearly with the villagers, which led them to assume he was a thief.

“There were rumours in the area about a gang using drones to scout houses for theft. In this tense environment, the villagers reacted violently without verifying facts,” the SP added. Hariom succumbed to injuries, and his body, bearing multiple serious wounds, was sent for postmortem. Police were informed the next morning.

The case caught national attention as it occurred in the parliamentary constituency of Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi. The Congress party condemned the incident, calling it “murder of humanity and the Constitution”. In a joint statement, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Gandhi alleged that mob lynching and bulldozer justice have become grim markers of the current regime.

Initially, five accused, Vaibhav Singh, Vijay Kumar, Sahdev Pasi, Vijay Maurya, and Suresh Kumar Maurya, were arrested. Based on CCTV footage, eyewitness accounts, and interrogations, four more were arrested on Tuesday. Among those arrested on Tuesday is Shiv Prasad Agrahari, who stood by as an onlooker during the incident and allegedly gave shelter to the main accused Shivam, and two others.

SP Yashveer Singh confirmed that all accused will face stringent action under the Gangster Act and the National Security Act (NSA).

He further cautioned against attempts to give the incident a caste-based narrative, stating, “The attackers were unaware of the victim’s caste. The accused come from different communities, and the act was based on suspicion, not caste.”

Police teams from Raebareli are also working in coordination with their counterparts in Fatehpur to trace any suspects who might have fled to other states.

The investigation is ongoing.