Arrest, Cops' Deaf Ear to Life Threats & 'Compromise' Offer: How Lapses Led to Brutal Udaipur Murder

Earlier this month, Rajasthan Police arrested Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal for his social media post. Then, they did not pay heed to his written complaint for two weeks that he was facing threats to his life and not being allowed to open his tailoring shop, and tried to effect a ‘compromise’.

Kanhaiya Lal was brutally murdered on Tuesday by two men who have now been nabbed, two weeks after he asked the police to give him protection. Main accused Mohammad Riyaz Attari is said to have also put out a video threat 10 days ago against Lal. The Rajasthan government has now suspended an assistant sub-inspector named Banwarlal for negligence in the matter but the lapses seem bigger and more heads are expected to roll in the police.

It was a social media post from his phone on June 9 on suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma that started it all. A day later, as per Lal’s complaint to the police, two people came to his shop and requested for his phone to make a call. They told him that an objectionable social media post had been made from his phone, deleted the same and told him to not make such posts in future.

On June 11, Lal got a call from the local Ghanamandi police station, saying a complaint had been lodged against him by his neighbour Nazim and he must report to the police station. Nazim told him he had lodged the FIR out of “pressure from society” as Lal told the cops that he did not know how to operate a mobile phone and the post was shared by his child by mistake while playing a game. However, he was arrested and then released on bail the next day.

But Lal kept facing threats after he came home and on June 15, he again went to the police station to give a written complaint that he was not being allowed to open his shop and 5-7 people, including Nazim, were conducting a recce of his shop daily. In his complaint, Lal also said that Nazim and his friends had circulated his picture and name in various WhatsApp groups with a threat that he would be killed if he opened his shop. “Please take legal action and allow me to open my shop and ensure my security and protection,” Lal wrote in his complaint.

There was, however, no action taken on this written plea for protection, despite a clear complaint. Instead, sources say, the police tried to effect a compromise between both the parties and asked Lal to “lie low and be cautious” for some days. In the midst of all this, investigators are now probing if main accused and killer Mohammad Riyaz Attari had also put out a video 10 days ago that he will murder Lal for the post.

Lal kept his shop closed for almost a week before opening it on Tuesday when he was killed by Attari and Gaus Mohammad who came in the garb of getting clothes stitched and attacked the tailor with sharp weapons.

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