The palace intrigue in the erstwhile royal state of Amethi turned ugly on Sunday as a police constable died in the cross-firing between supporters of Congress MP 'Raja' Sanjay Sinh and his estranged son Anant Vikram Singh.
"I might be murdered tonight," Anant, Sinh's son from his first wife Garima, told reporters. "If anything happens to me, Sanjay and Amita should be held responsible," he said, adding that he was being held under duress by the local administration allegedly dancing to the MP's tune. "The police are trying to frame me for the constable's murder," he alleged.
Sinh is now married to one-time ace badminton player Amita Modi, widow of slain badminton star Syed Modi and now Congress MLA from Amethi.
Anant and his family have been fighting for their rightful due for quite some time. On July 25, he along with his two sisters and mother had forcefully occupied a portion of 'Bhupati Bhavan', the Sinhs' ancestral house in Amethi, with the help of locals who are solidly behind Garima. Sanjay and Amita, who were in Delhi then, did not report the matter to the police.
On Sunday morning, Anant got word that Sanjay and Amita would be coming to take possession of 'Bhupati Bhavan'. To pre-empt this, he gathered his local supporters, many of who were armed and, according to witnesses, "ready for a fight to death". As Sinh had informed the district administration, a heavy police deployment was placed to ensure the royal couple's entry into the palace.
"Sanjay Sinh ji is the rightful owner of this house. How can anyone stop him from entering his own house," said Amethi District Magistrate Jagatraj Tripathi. The district SP Heera Lal also voiced similar views before the battery of media crews which had gathered there.
However, as the police tried to forcefully drive away the villagers supporting Anant, violence broke out. The locals fought a pitched battle with the police who resorted to caning, and lobbed tear gas shells. In the melee, a shot from a country-made firearm hit a constable who later died in hospital. Police are yet to trace the firearm or the person who fired the lethal shot.
Sanjay and Amita finally managed to enter the palace and are presently occupying its top portion while Garima and her family are on the ground floor, police sources confirmed. Sanjay claims that he has divorced Garima while the latter says the erstwhile 'Raja' had faked a divorce by mutual consent in a Sitapur court by producing another woman posing as her.
Know the feud (BOX)
Interestingly, both Sanjay Sinh and Amita Kulkarni-Modi were accused in the murder of Amita's husband and eight-time national badminton champion Syed Modi. He was shot dead on July 28, 1988 evening at the age of 26. The scandal surrounding the murder made headlines the world over. Besides Sinh and Amita, five other accused, including Rae Bareli MLA and mafia don Akhilesh Singh, were named in the charge sheet following a CBI probe. As per the charge sheet, the alleged Sanjay-Amita extra-marital affair was the main motive behind the murder. But the case against Sanjay and Amita -- for conspiracy -- was dropped in 1990, while Akhilesh Singh was exonerated in 1996. Sanjay and Amita got married in May 1995. Two of the other accused -- Amar Bahadur Singh and Balai Singh – both strangely died in road accidents. Only Bhagwati Singh was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
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