Chief Proctor among five named in student murder FIR
AGENCIES / VARANASI
A student of the Banaras Hindu University was shot at by unidentified assailants outside a hostel in the campus and later died in a hospital on Wednesday.
The attack took place on Tuesday evening when Gaurav Singh, residing in the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hostel on the campus, was standing outside Birla Hostel, and talking to his friends. Some unidentified motorcycle-borne assailants opened fire at him, said a police official.
Chief proctor Royana Singh, along with the other accused, faces charges of murder and criminal conspiracy. Four persons have been arrested in connection with the case.
The FIR lodged by the police at the Lanka police station in Varanasi names Ms. Singh, the first woman chief proctor in BHU history, as accused number 1.
Four others, Ashutosh Tripathi, Rupesh Tiwari, Kumar Manglam and Vinay Dwivedi, who are mentioned as BHU students, are also accused of the crime.
Gaurav Kumar Singh, a Master of Computer Applications student, who was on suspension since 2017, was on Tuesday evening shot at indiscriminately by three-four bikeborne persons, while he was standing at the Birla A intersection in the sprawling campus. He was rushed to the BHU trauma centre but succumbed to his injuries, said a police officer.
As per the police complaint lodged by the deceased student’s father Rakesh Pratap Singh, Ms. Singh is accused of hatching the “conspiracy” to get his son murdered due to old enmity.
Anil Kumar, the circle officer, said it was a case of personal enmity between the students. The FIR was lodged under Sections 147, 148,149, 120 B, 302 and 34 of the IPC and 7 CLA.
Gaurav was suspended in 2017 for his alleged role in the arson on campus. He was accused of burning buses and damaging government property, during an agitation on campus safety.
Talking to The Hindu, Ms. Singh said her name was dragged into the FIR as part of a “political conspiracy” as she had acted against rival student groups for creating trouble. “Perhaps they want to disrupt the administration work which I have been doing,” she said. Asked how she is connected to the incident, Ms. Singh quipped: “That’s a million dollar question.”
She said the deceased student had been living illegally in the Arts faculty hostel, while those named in the FIR, were no longer students of the varsity.