Jawahar Bagh: Slain cop’s kin to give statements

New Delhi: The CBI, probing the violence at Mathura’s Jawahar Bagh park where more than 20 people, including two police officials, were killed last year during a drive to evict squatters, has decided to record the statements of the family members of slain additional superintendent of police Mukul Dwivedi.

“The agency will first examine members of the Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi cult, led by Ram Vriksh Yadav, that had allegedly encroached on the 270-acre Jawahar Bagh, which was government land, for two years and clashed with police when they tried to evict them,” a top source said.

“After that the agency will record the statements of Archana Dwivedi and Prafull Dwivedi, wife and brother, respectively, of slain SP Mukul Dwivedi,” the source said.

The CBI recently filed a case in connection with the violence at Jawahar Bagh park where more than 20 people, including two police officials, were killed.

The case was registered on the directions of the Allahabad high court. Ram Vriksh Yadav too was killed in the encounter.

The Uttar Pradesh government had, in January 2014, granted permission to Yadav’s organisation to hold a demonstration inside Jawahar Bagh for two days.

However, members of the group went on to occupy the sprawling public park for more than two years. Following a high court order, the squatters were evicted from the park amid large-scale violence. A huge cache of weapons and explosives were recovered from the huts that had been erected inside the park during the period of illegal occupation.