Terror goof-up? UP police beat up and jail Telangana ATS personnel, suspecting them to be terrorists!

The UP police have ample reason to pat their own back for the manner in which their Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) cornered and neutralised ISIS Khorasan module terrorist Mohammed Saiful aka Saifullah. But it has also reason to kick itself, because it managed to not only keep three Telangana ATS personnel in custody overnight, but also beat them black and blue, because they suspected them to be terrorists!

Also read: Lucknow terror siege ends with ISIS terrorist Mohammed Saiful dead: 10 things you need to know about it

How Telangana cops ended up in UP Police custody

Reports from vernacular news outlets claim that local people near the Lakhna Byepass near Etawah on the night of Tuesday, March 7, apprehended three people, who they suspected were terrorists, and beat them black and blue. They suspected that the three individuals were terrorists because the trio could not speak Hindi properly.

The locals also informed the police who came and took them into their custody. The trio was then transferred to a nearby police station, kept there overnight and again beaten black and blue — this time by the local cops from the UP Police. It was around this time that the UP police ATS was busy in an encounter with Saifullah in the Thakurganj area of Lucknow.

It may be pertinent to mention here that there was a terror alert in the state, following the blast in the Bhopal-Ujjain Express. Ironically, intelligence inputs on terrorists being active in UP that resulted in the terror alert had come from two sources, one of which was the Telangana police!

Mistake realised

It was only when a higher-ranking Telangana official reached the police station that the matter began clearing up. However, it was not resolved instantly, because when this Telangana ATS official reached the police station, most — if not all — the UP police personnel stationed there had reportedly gone out in search of more terrorists.

When they returned, they had to be convinced of the trio's innocence, because the locals who had handed them over to the police had told the cops that the three people had been seen in the area for the past 15 days. The higher-ranking Telangana ATS officer had to call up the Telangana Inspector General to get the matter clarified and get his colleagues released from the custody of the UP police.

It now remains to be seen whether the UP police personnel who had not only kept the Telangana ATS men in jail but also beaten them up without verifying their antecedents get their comeuppance.