The Unnao Police in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday ruled out poisoning as the cause of Yunus Khan’s death, PTI reported. Khan, who died on August 19, was a witness in the murder case of a man whose teenage daughter was allegedly raped by a Bharatiya Janata Party legislator in Unnao.
Last week, the police had sent Khan’s viscera samples to the Lucknow Forensic Science Laboratory for testing as an autopsy could not ascertain the cause of his death.
“The FSL [forensic science laboratory] report of Yunus has been received by SP Unnao,” Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said in Lucknow. “No poison has been detected in the viscera which was sent for chemical analysis. This should end all speculation and settle the cause of his death beyond doubt.”
On August 25, the Unnao district administration exhumed Khan’s body amid protests by his family who said it was carried out without their consent. Khan’s wife Shabina Khatoon and other family members even tried to immolate themselves. After the postmortem examination, Khan’s body was buried in the same spot amid all rituals, sub-divisional Magistrate of Hasanganj (Unnao) Suraj Kumar Yadav said.
The body was exhumed after the rape complainant’s family demanded an autopsy. In a letter to the police on August 22, the woman’s uncle alleged Khan was “murdered as part of a conspiracy”. Congress President Rahul Gandhi had also hinted at a conspiracy. Khan’s family, however, claimed he died of a liver ailment and his wife has accused the complainant’s family of offering them a bribe.
The Unnao rape case
A teenage girl accused BJP legislator from Bangermau in Unnao district Kuldeep Singh Sengar of raping her in June 2017 and tried to commit suicide outside Chief Minister Adityanath’s house on April 8. The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Sengar 11 days after she tried to commit suicide.
A day after her attempted suicide, the girl’s father died in judicial custody after he was allegedly assaulted by the MLA’s brother and others. Sengar faces an additional charge of criminal conspiracy for allegedly framing the girl’s father in an Arms Act case, for which he was placed in judicial custody.
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