The November 2024 violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal was “ pre-planned” by Samajwadi Party MP Zia-ur-Rahman Barq, MLA Iqbal Mehmood’s son Suhail Iqbal and members of the Shahi Jama Masjid’s management committee, The Indian Express quoted a judicial commission as having alleged in a report on Wednesday. The three-member judicial panel, which had been set up to investigate the violence, cleared the police in the matter. The violence left five persons dead, with locals alleging that four of them were killed in police firing. The commission also claimed that four of the five persons who died during the violence were not killed in police firing, The Indian Express reported. The persons appeared to have been killed in alleged cross-firing among miscreants in the crowd, the panel said.