Three more people, including the main accused in the Hathras stampede case, which claimed 121 lives after Satsang, have been arrested by the police. Hathras Police today conducted a medical check-up of the main accused Devprakash Madhukar, arrested from Delhi and after that produced him in court. The key accused was sent to 14-day judicial custody by a magistrate court. 6 accused have already been arrested in this case.
Speaking to the media, Superintendent of Police (SP) Hathras, Nipun Agarwal, said that the chief organiser and the main accused, Dev Prakash Madhukar was arrested by the Special Operations Group of Hathras police from Najafgarh in Delhi on Friday evening. He said that two more accused Ram Prakash Shakya and Sanju Yadav were arrested by the Sikandra Rao police today. The SP said that preliminary interrogation of the main accused has revealed that he has been associated with the organisation for the last several years and was primarily responsible for organising programmes and collecting funds.
Hathras SP said that the accused Dev Prakash Madhukar had been working as a junior engineer in MNREGA in Etah since 2010. It has been revealed that sewadar and organising committee workers working under the direction of Dev Prakash were responsible for entry, exit, barricading, and parking during Satsang. They used to prevent police administration from any interference during Satsang. Further investigation is being done in this case. An investigation is also being done regarding the funding of such a big program.
Apart from this, the team of the Judicial Inquiry Commission formed to investigate the Hathras case reached Hathras today and started the investigation into the case. The team of the Judicial Inquiry Commission includes retired Judge of Allahabad High Court Brijesh Kumar Shrivastava, former IAS Hemant Rao, and former IPS Bhavesh Kumar Singh. The commission held a meeting with the officials in the police line today. After this, the team also inspected the incident spot.
Disclaimer: This press release is sourced from News On AIR, Prasar Bharti and Press Information Bureau India (PIB).