Lucknow: Police say they have arrested five people for setting afire the house of Congress state president Rita Bahuguna Joshi late on Wednesday night. However, family members of the five allege the five were being framed.
According to police, the five --Guddu Yadav, Shiv Kumar Singh, Inder Singh, Zameer Khan and Susajjit Tiwari -- were arrested near Joshi's house while trying to escape after setting the building ablaze.
"After getting the information, we reached the spot and found these men trying to run away from there. We arrested them in the early hours on Wednesday," inspector B R Saroj of Hussainganj police station, who also lodged a first information report (FIR) himself, told IANS.
However, none of the five have any criminal records. "We are scanning their past and have not yet found any criminal history," he added.
The five were booked under section 147 (rioting), 504 (intentional insult with the intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 427 (mischief and causing damage to property) and 436 (mischief by fire or explosive with intent to destroy house etc) of the Indian Penal Code and sent to jail on Thursday afternoon.
Family members of the five accused said the police were implicating them in the arson attack.
"We came to meet my husband's brother-in-law Guddu Yadav on Wednesday. However, my husband and Guddu had a quarrel with a neighbour, following which the police took them to the Cantonment police station. We also rushed there and waited since the morning only to know that they have been sent to the jail," Pushpa, wife of Shiv Kumar Singh said.
Zameer's uncle said he was a sales executive in an automobile company and was on his way to Dehradun for some official work when the police arrested him.
"He was waiting for an auto along with his friend when a drunken youth bumped into them. They had a brawl after which the police nabbed him late Wednesday night," his uncle Laiq claimed.
However, Saroj claims that he himself caught the five red handed with empty jerry-cans.
Meanwhile, the police have clubbed the FIR lodged by Congress spokesperson Subodh Srivastava with the FIR lodged by Saroj.
Srivastava had lodged an FIR against Jitendra Singh alias Babloo, the Bahujan Samaj Party legislator from the Bikapur constituency of Faizabad, accusing him of leading the mob that set Joshi's house on fire.
According to Srivastava, the legislator, with his face covered and along with over a dozen masked men, ransacked and set on fire Joshi's house and three vehicles there. "He also spoke to some news channels afterwards and even took responsibility," Srivastava claimed.
However, the police is yet to interrogate Babloo.
"The FIR has been clubbed with our FIR and we will question Babloo, if needed," Superintendent of Police (East) Harish Kumar said.
Joshi's house was set ablaze Wednesday night, allegedly by ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) activists after she made remarks against Chief Minister Mayawati.
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