Under pressure from an official in the ruling Hindu nationalist political party, police in Uttar Pradesh state released a suspect without charges over the attempted killing of a pastor in May.
‘When we entered the police station for the identification process, the attacker was treated like a VIP, not as a criminal,’ said Deepak Kumar, the brother-in-law of the pastor. ‘He was released the same day, even after we insisted that he is the one.’
Four men ambushed 39-year-old pastor Dinesh Kumar as he left Mohiuddinpur village on his motorbike, beating him with clubs so severely that he lost consciousness. A deep wound to his head required 16 stitches, a cut on his arm seven stitches, and he sustained internal injuries; seeing the wound on his arm, a doctor asked his wife if he had been shot.
