A Bharatiya Janata Party leader was murdered in Azamgarh, a youth was killed in Kannauj for objecting to eve-teasing, a woman was beheaded in Banda while two women were raped in Jaunpur and Hardoi districts in the last 24 hours.
In Azamgarh, BJP leader and kshetra panchayat member Arjun Yadav (46) was returning home after closing his shop in Haripur village of Powai area when unknown assailants shot at him on Thursday night. He was rushed to a nearby hospital by the villagers but the doctor there pronounced him dead.
The police were seeking information on any possible enmity or suspects from the victim’s family.
A police force was deployed as tension prevailed in the village due to the killing.
In Kannauj, a youth was shot dead for allegedly opposing eve-teasers making advances at his niece in the Sadar area.
Chandra Kishore (22) of Tehsipur village of Sadar Kotwali area left home to attend the call of nature on Thursday evening. When he did not return home till late night, his parents vainly looked for him. Later his body was spotted by some locals on the banks of Kali river on Friday morning.
On being informed, Superintendent of Police of Kannauj, Amrendra Prasad Singh, rushed to the spot for inspection. A country-made pistol was recovered from he spot.
The victim’s brother, Manjeet, told the police that Prem Singh, Neelesh Singh, Bablu, Anil, Ramkumar and Shivam used to make advances at their niece to which Kishore objected.
He said that the eve-teasers avenged their humiliation by killing his brother.
In another horrifying incident in Banda, a man decapitated his wife in suspicion of infidelity and walked with her severed head to the police station and surrendered.
Chinnar Yadav had a quarrel with his wife Vimla (35) around 7:30 am in their Netanagar locality house. In a fit of rage, Yadav chopped off his wife’s head with a sharp-edged weapon and carried it to Baberu police station to surrender.
A neighbour Ravi, who tried to save the victim was also critically injured.
A video of the accused walking on the road holding his wife’s severed head soon went viral on social media.
In Jaunpur, two minor sisters were raped by two youths in a village in Machhlishahr police station area. The two cousins were sleeping on the veranda of their house on Thursday night, when two youths of the village took them to a farm and raped them.
On finding the girls missing, as their kin searched for them, they somehow returned home late in the night and shared their ordeal with the kin.
A case was registered on Friday morning and the two accused were arrested.
In Hardoi, a father of three raped his four-year-old daughter while his wife was away to a market on Thursday.
On returning home, the wife noticed blood stains in the kid’s clothes and learnt of the incident but she was threatened into silence by the husband. But when a relative visited her, she narrated the incident after which the police were informed and the victim was taken to hospital.
A case was subsequently registered and the rapist father was arrested.