Meerut: Tension escalated in Meerut’s Shobhapur village after a youth, Ashish Gurjar, was shot dead by unidentified assailants near Yogi Puram police outpost on Saturday morning. Gurjar was one of the accused arrested for the killing of a Dalit youth, Gopi Parya, on April 4, two days after the Bharat Bandh violence on April 2 which witnessed one of the worst caste clashes in the western UP region.Gurjar, who was arrested on April 5 this year and got bail on September 14, was on his way to the district court for a hearing in the murder case. According to police, Gurjar was ambushed by unidentified assailants who opened indiscriminate fire, killing him on the spot. He was shot six times.A case of murder under section 302 of the IPC has been lodged at Kankerkhera police station against eight named accused — Prashant, Tarachand, Vijay, Anil, Rohit, Ravi, Arvind and Mohit. The family of the victim has blamed Parya’s family for the murder. Tarachand and Prashant are the father and younger brother of Parya respectively, police said.Scores of locals from the Gujjar community to which the victim belonged staged a protest and demanded immediate arrest of the accused. Some of the protesters threatened to avenge the murder of Gurjar if the accused were not immediately arrested. Senior police officers including city superintendent of police Rannvijay Singh and SP (crime) Bhim Priya Ashok tried to pacify the agitators and assured them that the perpetrators would be arrested quickly.“The situation did not escalate into a serious law and order problem. We requested influential people from the community to pacify the agitators, who were not willing to hand over the body of the deceased to police for further formalities,” SP Singh.Several police teams have been raiding locations to trace the accused. “As of now we have detained 10 to 12 people who are directly related to the named accused. We are rounding them up to get the location of the accused who are supposedly hiding. Tarachand has been arrested,” Singh added.Heavy police force has been deployed in the village, which was on the boil after the April 2 violence as Gopi’s name was on the top of the list of ‘conspirators’ that was handed over to the cops at local police station by people from the Gujjar community.

Stay updated with all the Meerut Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.