New Delhi: Eleven days after a Muslim man was lynched by a group of Hindu men in Aligarh city of Uttar Pradesh, a first information report was lodged against the deceased victim, his brother and five others on the charges of dacoity and assaulting a woman to outrage her modesty.
Aurangzeb alias Farid, aged 35, died on the night of June 18 after he was assaulted by local men, who, police said, suspected him of having attempted theft at a Hindu trader’s house.
Then, on June 29, an FIR was lodged against Aurangzeb and six other Muslim men under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 395 (dacoity) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was lodged on the complaint of Laxmi Rani Mittal, who alleged that Aurangzeb and his companions committed dacoity in her house on the day of the incident. She claimed that Aurangzeb suffered injuries after slipping on a staircase while trying to hurriedly escape the house after the loot.
The details of the FIR lodged on her complaint contradict the facts of the case that emerged on the basis of a viral video and FIR lodged in the case by the family of the deceased victim.
Mittal’s claims
Mittal told The Wire that her family runs an apparel store on the ground floor of the building and live on the second floor. According to the FIR lodged at Gandhi Park police station in Aligarh, on June 18, Mittal was in her kitchen, while her husband and children were resting in another room and her father-in-law had gone to the temple. At around 10.15 pm, she alleged that a group of five to six men climbed up through the stairs and entered their house. One of them carried an illegal country-made pistol while two others were armed with knives, she claimed.
Holding her at gunpoint, the men robbed a gold necklace she was wearing. “They threatened to shoot me if I tried to make any noise,” claimed Mittal, who added that one of the accused men placed his hand on her chest indecently.
The intruder led her to another room and demanded that she hand over all the money she had, Mittal claimed. She alleged that the robbers forced her to hand over Rs 2.5 lakh in cash that was kept in an almirah, and some gold and silver jewellery. The man then handed over the cash and the jewellery along with his pistol to his companions and told them he would be back with more items, Mittal claimed in her FIR.
Mittal further claimed that four intruders stood near the staircase for a while and escaped with the looted items as they feared getting caught, upon hearing sounds of people outside. The intruder who had accompanied her to the other room also tried to escape but slipped on the stairs and tumbled, said Mittal. The man suffered an injury on his head and his limbs, she claimed.
Also read: Aligarh: Group of Hindu Men Lynch Muslim Man on Theft Suspicion
‘Aurangzeb identified himself’
Mittal said that some locals caught hold of the man, who identified himself as Aurangzeb, after they heard her cries for help. According to her FIR, Aurangzeb allegedly told the local men about his companions who escaped. They had come to the locality to conduct a recce for a dacoity, alleged Mittal. Those named in the FIR were Aurangzeb, Salman, Aurangzeb’s brother Mohammad Zaki, Akarbar, Nawab, Shamim, Ashu Paan wale ka ladka and two others.
Explaining the delay in lodging the FIR, Mittal said that she could not go to the police station on the day of the incident due to the commotion. In her FIR too, she has mentioned that the local police station did not lodge her complaint, following which she had to address her complaint to the Superintendent of Police, Aligarh.
“We could not go to the police station on the same day,” she said.
Mittal told The Wire that she did not recognise the men who allegedly barged into her house. She said that locals who caught hold of Aurangzeb got information of his identity and those of his companions through him, she said.
Mittal further said that after locals apprehended Aurangzeb, her father-in-law, who returned from the temple, dialled 112, following which police arrived at the scene and took away an injured Aurangzeb.
S.P. Singh, station house officer at Gandhi Park, confirmed to The Wire that an FIR had been lodged under dacoity and assaulting a woman to outrage her modesty. Asked if police had identified those named in the FIR along with Aurangzeb, the officer said it was a matter of investigation. “All this is a part of the investigation,” he said.
No arrests were made yet in the FIR, he added.
An MLA emerges
On the complaint of Aurangzeb’s brother Mohammed Zaki, an FIR was lodged on June 18 against 10 persons, all of them Hindus, and 10-12 other unidentified persons under the charges of murder, unlawful assembly, rioting with deadly weapon, wrongful restraint and committing a crime with common intention. In his FIR, Zaki had said that the assaulters had identified his brother as a Muslim.
Four persons were arrested in the murder case.
A video of the accused persons surrounding Aurangzeb at a small crossing in a locality in Aligarh and thrashing him with lathis and assaulting him with kicks and punches, was widely shared on social media.
According to the FIR lodged at Gandhi Park police station on the complaint of Zaki, Aurangzeb was returning at around 10:15 pm on June 18 after making rotis when he was confronted by some locals near a by-lane in the Mamu-Bhanja neighbourhood. They attacked him with the intention to kill and “identified him as a Muslim,” said Zaki in his complaint. He described it as a case of “mob-lynching.” The persons accused of murdering Aurangzeb were identified as Ankit Varshney, Chirag Varshney, Sanjay Varshney, Rishabh Pathak, Anuj Agrawal, Monu Pathak, Pandit Vijaygarhwala, Kamal Bansal, Dimpy Agrawal and Rahul Agrawal.
With the local BJP MLA Mukta Raja standing with those arrested in the murder case, claiming that they were being falsely implicated, the incident took a communal and political turn. On June 19, Hindutva activists and traders from the Hindu community led by Raja staged a dharna protesting against the police action against the accused persons and demanded that they not carry out further arrests. With members of both communities coming out on the streets, the area was boiling with communal tension but no further violence was reported.
