Muzaffarnagar (UP), Mar 2 (IANS): Almost 29 years after the incident, a fast-track court in Muzaffarnagar has framed charges against the then station in-charge of Chapaar police station Rajveer Singh in the Rampur Tiraha firing case.

Singh (65) was accused of tearing the general diary page containing evidence of firing on Uttarakhand statehood protesters by police.

District government counsel Rajeev Sharma said, "The accused SHO has been charged with IPC sections 120b (criminal conspiracy) and 218 (public servant framing an incorrect record or writing with intent to save a person from punishment)."

According to defence lawyer Gyan Kumar, the former SHO is now suffering from cancer and was brought from Mathura in an ambulance to appear before the court.

"The court has fixed March 13 as the next date of hearing," said Kumar.

Last week, the court issued NBWs against 23 police personnel for not appearing before it in the 29-year-old case under IPC sections 376-G (gangrape), 392 (robbery), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).

It may be recalled that on the night of October 1, 1994, hundreds of activists, who were on their way to Delhi from a region of UP (now Uttarakhand), were stopped by police in Muzaffarnagar.

Initially, there was a lathi-charge followed by police firing in which six people died and several others were injured.

The incident led to national outrage and became a turning point for the creation of Uttarakhand.