Kunda:
Six months before he was shot dead in the constituency of politician
Raja Bhaiya, senior police officer Zia-ul-Haque had prepared a list of cases against the MLA. Charges in the 47 cases listed against him include murder, conspiracy to murder and violations under the Gangster Act.
Raja Bhaiya, whose real name is Raghuraj Pratap Singh, is accused of conspiring in the murder of Zia-ul-Haque. He has denied any link to the case, and resigned as minister in the Uttar Pradesh government a few days ago.
The CBI, which is probing the killing of Zia-ul-Haque, has not indicated how quickly it will question Raja Bhaiya, who was neither interrogated nor arrested by the UP police.
The CBI team is investigating the murders of a village headman, his brother, and Kunda's Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Zia-ul-Haque.
The biggest challenge for the CBI team is convincing the villagers that witnessed the murders to testify. There were, reportedly, 300 people present when the murders happened. Many of the men in Balipur, where the shootings took place, have disappeared to avoid being questioned.
The 10-member CBI team in Kunda has appealed to villagers to come forward as witnesses. In a press release, the CBI, which has set up a camp office and a helpline number in Pratapgarh, has assured the villagers against any kind of harassment.
Zia-ul-Haque was killed after he reached Pratapgarh where the village headman, Nanhe Yadav, had been shot. An angry mob reportedly cornered him, and eight policemen who were with Zia-ul-Haq allegedly abandoned him. Three bullets were fired - one killed Zia-ul-Haque; two others killed Yadav's brother. (
Read: How Zia-ul-Haque was killed)
Meanwhile, Zia-ul-Haque's widow, Parveen Azad, has written a letter to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, demanding the CBI team investigating her husband's murder should be from Delhi, not Uttar Pradesh. She has also demanded that a fast track court should be set up outside Uttar Pradesh and the case should be heard on a day-to-day basis.