The post-mortem report of Gulfam Singh Yadav, a BJP leader who was allegedly given a poisonous injection in Sambhal district, remained inconclusive, further deepening the mystery behind his murder. The local police on Tuesday said that the autopsy could not confirm the presence of poison in his body.
The viscera of the 66-year-old leader have been preserved and will be sent to a forensic lab for a detailed report, the police added.
Gulfam was at his farm in Debthara Himachal village on Monday afternoon when three men approached him and touched his feet. According to the police, the BJP leader asked his domestic help to serve water to them. While one of the men stepped out, two others sat with Gulfam. One of them allegedly injected a liquid into Gulfam’s stomach and fled on a bike, the police said.
Gulfam was rushed to a local hospital and later to Aligarh, but he died on the way, the police added.
On Tuesday, Gulfam’s son Vinay Prakash filed a complaint against the three unidentified men at Junawai police station.
“An FIR has been registered on the basis of the complaint under Section 101 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Eight police teams have been formed to trace the absconding accused,” Station House Officer (SHO) of Junawai police station, Sunil Kumar Singh, disclosed to the media.
“We are yet to get the post-mortem report in writing, but we were informed that the report has not confirmed the presence of poison in the body. The viscera will be sent to the forensic lab in Agra for a detailed visceral report,” Singh added.
The police have seized a wrapper of the syringe and a helmet left behind by the accused.
“We got the information at around 1.30 pm on Monday. We have collected important leads about the accused and are hopeful of arresting them soon,” Superintendent of Police, Sambhal, Krishna Kumar Bishnoi, said.
“We are exploring all possible angles in this case and are treating it as a blind murder for now because there are no eyewitnesses in this case,” Additional Superintendent of Police, Sambhal, Anukriti Sharma, said, adding that there was no injury mark on his body except for the needle injected in his abdomen.
A veteran BJP leader, Gulfam shot to fame after he contested and lost against the late Samajwadi Party head and former UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav from UP’s Gunnaur Assembly constituency in 2004.
Gulfam had resigned from his government job as a Lekhpal (accountant) and joined the RSS in 1976. He had been associated with the Sangh Parivar since then and later became the vice-president of the BJP’s West UP unit.
He was also made in charge of the Sambhal Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in the 2022 parliamentary polls and 2024 Assembly elections, respectively. Gulfam had also served as a member of the UP State Commission for Backward Classes. He is survived by his wife Javitri, who is serving her third successive term as the pradhan of Debthara Himachal village, two sons, and six daughters.
Hundreds attend funeral
Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered here on Tuesday for the funeral of Gulfam Singh Yadav. The funeral, held in Davdhara Himachal village, was thronged by local BJP leaders and workers, who demanded the killers be brought to book fast.
A local party leader and in-charge of ‘Shakti Kendra’ in Chandausi, Amit Varshney, remembered Yadav as a humble man and a true party worker, adding, the huge turnout was a testimony to his popularity. “His last rites were performed at Rajghat on the bank of the Ganga,” he said.
Speaking to reporters at Yadav’s residence, BJP district president Harendra Singh said the killers cannot escape the law.
“They may believe that with their method, they will dodge the law. But they are mistaken. Action against them will be so severe that their future generations will remember it,” he said.
Party MLAs from Budaun and Moradabad, Mahesh Chandra Gupta and Ritesh Gupta, former minister Ajit Singh (Raju), and BJP’s western region vice-president Rajesh Singhal attended Yadav’s funeral.
