HC orders CBI probe into custodial death of sharpshooter Bajrangi

Decision on wife’s plea

Decision comes on a petition filed by Munna Bajrangi’s wife who has been alleging her husband’s murder was a conspiracy

Bajrangi originally from Jaunpur was almost synonymous with terror in Purvanchal in the 90s until his arrest in 2009

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, February 25

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday ordered a CBI probe into the custodial death of notorious sharpshooter Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi inside Baghpat jail on July 9, 2018.

The court decision came on a petition filed by Bajrangi’s wife Seema Singh who has been alleging that the jail officials had connived in the larger conspiracy to eliminate her husband.

Just a day before the murder, 51-year-old Bajrangi had been brought to Baghpat jail from Jhansi in connection with a court hearing related to extortion threat claimed by BJP MLA Lokesh Dixit.

Before he could appear before the court hearing Bajrangi was shot dead reportedly by jail inmate Sunil Rathi. The then jailor Uday Pratap Singh, deputy jailor Shivaji Yadav, head jail warden Arjinder Singh and warder Madhav Kumar had been suspended for dereliction of duty.

Jailer Uday Pratap Singh had lodged a case of murder against Rathi. A charge-sheet has already been filed in the case and the trial is going on in the court of district judge Ram Manohar Narain Mishra.

Bajrangi had more than 40 cases of murder, extortion, and kidnapping against him. Strangely, his wife Seema Singh had addressed a press conference in Lucknow’s Press Club on June 29, days before his murder, where she had said that her husband was facing threat to his life.

She had alleged that an STF officer and some influential politicians were conspiring to get rid of her husband in a fake encounter.

Spelling out the modus operandi she had said Bajrangi would be killed inside the jail either by the police or criminals on instructions of the police.

According to her, an attempt to poison him had been made inside Jhansi jail that was reportedly captured on CCTV camera. She had also petitioned Varanasi district court in this matter.

In this context, she had also urged chief minister Yogi Aditynath for additional security for her husband

Exactly ten days after her warning Munna Bajrangi had been killed exactly as she had predicted – by another criminal – Sunil Rathi, lodged inside Baghpat jail barely 9 hours after he was brought to Baghpat for a court appearance in an exhortation case.