DEHRADUN - The death of a youth from Ghaziabad at the hands of police here led to demonstrations on the streets of Dehradun Saturday, with his family alleging he was killed in a staged shootout.

Stating that Ranvir Singh was a management graduate who had come to the Uttarakhand capital to reportedly take up an assignment with a financial firm, his family members accused the Dehradun police of gunning him down in a “fake encounter” Friday.

Eyewitnesses told mediapersons they saw Ranvir Singh and his two companions on a motorbike having a scuffle with policemen in a crowded locality.

Police admitted that Ranvir Singh was killed by police gunshots.

But a police spokesman said: “Not only did Ranvir and his two companions intimidate the policeman who wanted to see their documents, but they also snatched the cop’s revolver and fired at them with a country-made pistol.”

Uttarakhand Director General of Police Subhash Joshi said: “Since three of them were riding on a bike bearing a Haryana registration number, they were stopped by a policeman. Instead of cooperating, they started fighting with him.

“Following a scuffle, they even went to the extent of speeding away after snatching the policeman’s service revolver, which led the police to sound an alert across the city. About an hour and half later, when a police party spotted them in one of the bylanes, they were asked to surrender. But they again opened fire following which the cops retaliated leaving one dead.

“While the other two sped away on the bike and are yet to be tracked down, Ranvir’s family members arrived from Ghaziabad and were trying to make a huge issue out of it.”

He alleged that the relatively mild protests had been magnified by a few TV channels.

According to him, the police were on an alert because of a few incidents of motor-cycle borne criminals indulging in daylight robbery in certain parts of the state capital.