In Ghaziabad village where cop shot dead, many families leave, scared by ‘carpet searches'
: Since Sunday night's shootout with aides of a gangster that led to the death of a 27-year-old Noida police constable, many families have left Nahal village amid round-the-clock police surveillance, questioning of locals and 'carpet searches' to find those who had attacked the police team.
Police have so far made 14 arrests, but prime suspect Aadil remains elusive. That night when Saurabh Kumar Deshwal was shot in the head, police were successful in arresting Qadir, the gangster who they had gone to pick up after a tipoff from an informer. Aadil is Qadir's brother and is believed to have led the attempt to ambush the cops when they were on their way out of the village with Qadir.
Nahal's streets have been deserted for three days, but now, so are many of its houses, with locks hanging on them as fear of arrest haunts the village around 3km off NH-9.
Nahal has a population of 40,000. Village Pradhan Tasawwar Ali told TOI on Wednesday, "About 70% of the people living here have left. They need to go out every day to earn and feed their families, but an atmosphere of fear now prevails here. So they have left and are staying with their friends or relatives.
They have left their livestock behind. We don't know how to take care of them."
The Pradhan said sudden summons by police for questioning had scared locals.
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"We met the police commissioner on Wednesday and requested that innocent people should not be disturbed through night searches or by suddenly being taken into custody. Two days ago, 35 people were taken. Today, 15 people were rounded up. These are all innocent people. They have no information," said Ali.
A resident of the village who left recently told TOI many feared being arrested. "My family has been living in this village for more than 50 years now.
We are a family of 14 and have never seen anything like this in our lives," the 30-year-old said. "I have come to a relative's place with my whole family. It became difficult to even sleep at home with continuous sirens of police vehicles scaring people. We will only go back once the situation is normal.
"
Ali said village representatives had told the police to "punish the guilty but leave the innocent alone". "Many families have young children, pregnant women and elderly.
We are ready to support the police as responsible citizens to catch the criminals and get them punished. But not at the cost of the innocent," he said.
"It's also not easy to be living here for those who haven't left because one can barely go out. Besides, shops are closed. I want police to pick up the real culprits at the earliest so the rest of the village can live peacefully again," another local resident said.
DCP (Rural) Surendra Nath Tewari told TOI that 14 people have been arrested after they were identified from CCTV footage.
"No one has been detained. People are only being brought in for questioning and then let go. We have identified a few more people from the footage, but we are yet to get a clear and complete footage from the night. We are also working on that," he said.
Tewari said PAC and police personnel from 5-6 stations were deployed at the village to maintain law and order.
"Such incidents tend to spark fear among people, so some families have left the village," the DCP said, adding that senior cops met the village's pradhan and assured them that no unnecessary arrests would be made.
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