Bilaspur:
It was a tough day at work for Mahendra Yadav. At 6 pm on Sunday evening, one showing of Salman Khan's blockbuster Dabangg had just ended, another was scheduled to begin shortly. At the cinema in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, where Yadav worked as security guard, the crowds surged. As Yadav attempted to control them, he suddenly found himself being attacked by policemen. He was rushed to hospital, where he was declared dead.
What exactly happened to Yadav- and why - has changed dramatically in the last 24 hours. Eyewitnesses insisting on anonymity say Yadav pushed a senior policeman, Jayant Thorat, the District Superintendent of Police, who was not in uniform. Nine junior policemen, livid that their boss had not been recognised, pounced on Yadav.
Immediately after Yadav died, his own boss said, "I have witnessed a murder and I want the murderer." But now, Vinay Sharma, who owns the security company that provides guards to the cinema where Yadav worked has changed his mind. He says that he wasn't at the cinema when Yadav was killed. He also says Yadav was not his employee.
The doctor who examined Yadav has not submitted a preliminary post-mortem report. Off camera, he says there are no injuries on Yadav's body. If he says that formally, the police will get a huge reprieve because they can then argue that Yadav's beating was not severe, and may not necessarily have caused his death.
The police have arrested two constables who they say beat up Yadav because they got into a fight with him over movie tickets.
The cinema was packed with hundreds of people when Yadav was attacked. Nobody wants to testify in the case. Thorat says only that he had left the cinema before Yadav's relentless beating began. In a small town like Bilaspur, the Superintendent of Police is a powerful position. Adjunct to that power is the police's apparent bent to close ranks around the men involved. Who would risk countering that, ask eyewitnesses.