Mathura violence case: HC asks CBI to furnish DNA reports

The Allahabad High Court today directed the CBI to furnish the report of the DNA test of Ram Vriksha Yadav, a self-styled cult leader who, Uttar Pradesh police had claimed, was killed in violence that erupted during eviction of squatters from Jawahar Bagh in Mathura last year.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice D B Bhosle and Justice Yashwant Varma passed the order in presence of CBI officials handling the investigation, and fixed July seven as the next date of hearing in the matter.
The court was hearing a bunch of PILs filed last year by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, Mathura resident Vijay Pal Singh and others who had prayed for a CBI inquiry into the Jawahar Bagh episode wherein more than 20 people, including two police officials, had lost their lives.

Although the police had claimed that Yadav, said to be close to top leaders of the then ruling Samajwadi Party in the state, was among those killed in the violence, the petitioners have claimed that he was alive and in hiding.
The court had ordered a CBI inquiry into the entire episode on March two last and asked the agency to complete its investigation within two months.
Last week, the CBI was pulled up by the court for tardiness in the probe.
The public park had remained under unlawful occupation by Yadav and his nearly 3,000 "followers" for more than two years which led to the eviction drive in June last year. Additional Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi was among those killed in the ensuing violence.

The CBI had submitted before the court that DNA samples of charred bodies, recovered from the site after the violence, were being sent to a forensic science laboratory since facilities for conducting the required tests were not available at Lucknow.