Two days after the witnesses in the Pehlu Khan case said that they were attacked on their way to court, the Rajasthan police have claimed that there was no such attack and the key witnesses in the case made it up to get the hearing shifted out of Behror.
Calling the allegations false, Alwar's Deputy Superintendent of Police Kushal Singh told The Indian Express, "We have a lot of evidence to deny the claims. The CCTV footage along the spot (of alleged firing) shows that there was no black Scorpio before or after the vehicle. We have filed a final report in the case."
On Saturday, key witnesses in the mob lynching case, including lawyer Asad Hayat and Khan's sons Arif and Irshad, lodged a complaint at the Neerana police station claiming that they were followed by a black SUV without number plates.
They said some men, unknown to them, fired shots at them while they were on their way to the additional district judge court in Behror.
The Rajasthan police told the Hindustan Times that they will file a closure report in the case because of lack of evidence and that the court may order criminal proceedings against the witnesses because of false claims.
Hindustan Times quoted Singh as saying, "On their way to Alwar, they crossed Neemrana, Shahjahanpur, Bardod and Tatarpur police stations but they did not report the incident to any of these and chose to drive straight to SP office."
In April last year, Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, was allegedly lynched by cow vigilantes in Alwar district when he was transporting cattle to his village in Haryana.