Lucknow, Sep 29: A minister of the Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday ruled out foul play in 'encounter' of the young Apple executive Vivek Tiwari, who was shot dead by a constable. Reacting to the death of Vivek Tiwari, the state irrigation minister Dharampal Singh said there was nothing wrong in 'encounter', and criminals won't be spared.

"There was nothing wrong in the encounter. Bullets hit only criminals. We will give justice to everyone. Those who will commit a crime, will pay the price," Singh said in response to a question on the death of Vivek Tiwari. Notably, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath denied that the killing of Tiwari was an encounter, while ordering a probe.

Tiwari, an employee of tech giant Apple, was allegedly killed during firing by UP Police constable. According to a colleague of Apple sales manager, the constable, Prashant Chowdhary, had shot at Tiwari after chasing the SUV he was driving. He had apparently failed to stop Tiwari during a late night checking at around 1:30 am.

Tiwari was heading home after the launch of iPhone XS and XS Max along with Sana Khan, his colleague. The accused constable, who has been taken into police custody following the incident and a case has been registered against him under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), claimed that he fired in self-defense.

"At 2 am last night, I saw a suspicious car with its lights off, when I approached the car, the driver (deceased Vivek Tiwari) tried to run over me thrice to kill me. I fired in self-defence, he then immediately sped off from the spot," Chowdhary told news agency ANI. The Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Anand Kumar, however, conceded that "law has been violated in the incident".

The Director-General of Police, O.P. Singh, has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Inspector General (Lucknow) to probe the case. Superintendent of Police (SP) crime and rural will be part of the team which has been asked to submit its report at the earliest. SSP Lucknow has met District Magistrate Kaushalraj Sharma requesting a simultaneous magisterial inquiry

The autopsy revealed on Saturday that the bullet had hit Tiwari in the chin and got stuck between the neck and the head, leading to his death due to "profuse bleeding".

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 29, 2018 04:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).