CBI Registers Case In Jawahar Bagh Violence

The violent clashes in June last year left 29 people, including two police officers, dead.

Over 20 people were killed in the violence at Mathura’s Jawahar Bagh Park. (Photo: PTI)

The CBI has registered a case in connection with the violence at Mathura's Jawahar Bagh park where more than 20 people, including two police officials, were killed in June 2016, during a drive to evict squatters.

The case has been registered on the directions of the Allahabad High Court.

Members of the Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi cult, led by Ram Vriksh Yadav, had encroached on the 270-acre Jawahar Bagh, which was government land, for two years and clashed with police when they tried to evict them.

The clashes in June last year left 29 people, including two police officers, dead.

Ram Vriksh Yadav too was killed in the encounter.

The Uttar Pradesh government had, in January 2014, granted permission to Yadav's organisation to hold a demonstration inside Jawahar Bagh for two days.

However, members of the group went on to occupy the sprawling public park for more than two years.

Following a High Court order, the squatters were evicted from the park amid large-scale violence.

A huge cache of arms, ammunition and explosives were recovered from the huts that had been erected inside the park during the period of illegal occupation.

Among those who had moved the court with the demand for a CBI inquiry were Delhi-based BJP leader and Supreme Court lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay and Mathura resident Vijay Pal Singh Tomar.

Besides, interlocutory applications were filed at a later stage by Archana Dwivedi and Prafull Dwivedi, wife and brother respectively of slain Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi.