Bulandshahr violence: Accused Prashant Natt's wife cries foul, says police team had kept the phone

New Delhi, Jan 28: Wife of Prashant Natt, accused in Bulandshahr Violence case arrested on 27 December, allege that the mobile phone of Inspector Subodh Kumar which was seized from their home was kept there by the police team itself which had come to search the place.

Police came to us saying they have a search warrant. They asked which room is Prashant's. 2 cops went in&kept a phone on the dressing table there. When we said it isn't ours, they told us to shut up. Police had brought the phone along with themselves.

Earlier on Sunday, the Uttar Pradesh police had recovered six mobile phones from the residence of the main accused in inspector Subodh Kumar Singh's killing in the December 3 mob violence at Syana in Bulandshahr district.

On the other hand, Atul Srivastav, Superintendent of Police (SP) City, said: "As per information received from sources, an operation was conducted to recover the mobile of the deceased policeman Subodh Kumar. His phone was recovered from the main accused Prashant Natt's house."

Singh was killed along with a local resident when a mob went on a rampage over alleged cow slaughter in the district. He was cornered and attacked with stones and an axe before Natt, a taxi driver, allegedly shot him dead. Singh's two mobile phones and a pistol had gone missing after his killing. The police are yet to recover the pistol even as Natt was arrested on December 27.

A postmortem report had found that the policeman had died of a bullet wound below his left eyebrow.

As many as 37 accused in the case have either been arrested or have surrendered. They include Bajrang Dal's Yogesh Raj, BJP leader Shikhar Agarwal, and Upendra Raghav of the Vishva Hindu Parishad. Raj and Agarwal were arrested while Raghav surrendered to a court. Police had booked 27 and at least 60 unidentified people for Singh's killing on December 3. The state government has separately booked Azhar Khan, Nadeem Khan, and Mehboob Ali under the National Security Act (NSA) for the alleged cow slaughter that sparked the violence.