A police officer lost his life on Saturday after being assaulted in Munger district of Bihar while he had gone to a village to intervene in a fracas.
Four people allegedly involved in his killing have been arrested, of which one was shot by the police in his leg and injured when he tried to escape from custody.
This is the second killing of a police officer in the state within three days. Sporadic incidents of violence were reported from several other districts as well.
Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Santosh Kumar Singh had gone to the ITC Nandlalpur village under Muffasil police station with a couple of police personnel late on Friday evening after receiving information of some ruckus caused by an inebriated group of people on the occasion
of Holi.
When he tried to stop it, some of the men in the group attacked him with sharp-edged weapons. He received injuries to his head and fell. The attackers then dragged him for a significant distance.
Santosh had gone to the village over the complaint of Pradeep Kumar that a villager, Ranveer Kumar Yadav and his friends had consumed liquor and were harassing him
and his family.
“ASI Santosh Kumar Singh and his team working with Dial 112 went to the village where Ranveer and his family attacked him with sharp-edged weapons. He received serious head injuries. He was taken to the Sadar Hospital from where he was referred to Patna for better treatment,” Munger superintendent of police (SP) Imran Masood said.
The injured police officer was taken to a private hospital in Patna where he died at 3am on Saturday. His body was later brought back to Munger where the police and district administration officials paid him tribute.
Santosh was a native of Kaimur district and had joined the police force as a constable in 2007. He served in the special task force (STF) and is succeeded by a wife and a seven-year-old son.
Meanwhile, the police arrested six persons, including a woman in connection with the incident. One of them — Guddu Yadav — snatched a firearm from a police personnel and tried to flee but was shot in his leg and apprehended. He is undergoing treatment at a government hospital.
Earlier this week, another ASI Rajiv Ranjan Mall was killed in Araria district in a scuffle that broke out after the arrest of an alleged drug peddler.