In yet another case of mob lynching, a man was reportedly killed on the suspicion of cow smuggling by a group of villagers in Rajasthan’s Alwar district. A police investigation has been launched as well.
Twenty eight-year-old Akbar Khan, a resident of Kolgaon in Haryana, and another man were taking two cows to their village through a forest area near Lalawandi village in Alwar district’s Ramgarh area on Friday night, when a group of people severely thrashed Khan, Ramgarh police station SHO Subhash Sharma said.
Khan was rushed to a government hospital in Ramgarh, where doctors declared him brought dead. The body has been kept at a mortuary in Alwar, the SHO said. A postmortem is expected to be conducted after Khan’s family members reach the hospital.
Speaking to reporters, Additional Superintendent of Police, Alwar, Anil Beniwal, said arrests will be made soon. “It is not clear if they were cow smugglers. The body has been sent for postmortem, We are trying to identify the culprits and arrests will be made soon,” ANI, quoted him as saying. A case has been registered against unidentified people under IPC Section 302.
The incident comes just over a year after Pehlu Khan, a man in his fifties and dairy farmer, was brutally beaten to death by cow vigilantes in Alwar district. Khan and at least four others were injured when a mob had attacked nearly 15 persons hailing from Haryana, while transporting cows in vehicles on the Behror highway in Alwar district on 5 April.
In September, the Rajasthan police had given a clean chit to the six people named in the Pehlu Khan lynching incident. Following this, Khan’s family had sought a court-monitored probe into the killing and said the case must be shifted out of the state.
In a similar incident in November, cow vigilantes beat up and shot at two Muslim youths in Fahari village near Govindh Gadh in Alwar district, when the youths were transporting cows from Mewat in Haryana to Bharatpur in Rajasthan. One of the two victims, identified as Ummar Khan, died in the attack.
Friday’s incident occurred on the same day Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged states to take strict actions against those involved in mob lynching and rapes.
Alluding to mob-lynching while replying in his speech during the no-confidence motion debate, Modi said, “The incidents of violence are against the basic principles of humanity. I once again urge the states to take strict action in such cases.”
