Muslim Man Assaulted By Mob in Bihar Succumbs To Injuries

New Delhi: Mohammad Athar Hussain, a cloth vendor who was robbed and assaulted by a mob that later cut his ears and fingertips off with a plier and branded him with a hot iron in Bihar’s Nawada district on December 5, succumbed to his injuries on the night of December 12, according to a news report by the Indian Express.

According to the police, eight people have been arrested and detained so far.

Assault in lieu of help

Fifty-year-old Hussain was returning to his home in Barui village in Nawada district on the night of December 5 when his  bicycle – on which he sells his ware – needed urgent repairs. Being near Bhattapar village (which comes in the Roh police station limits), Hussain asked a group of people about a puncture repair shop nearby.

They asked his name and profession and then assaulted him, cut his ears, beat him with a heated rod, Hussain’s brother Mohammad Shakib Alam told Indian Express.

As per the news report, Hussain had recounted the horrific details of his assault in a video after the incident. He mentioned how his assailants first asked his name, then pulled him off his bicycle and robbed him of money. The mob allegedly numbered 15–20 people.

Hussain said that the assailants tied his hands and feet, locked him in a room, and beat him up. 

“They beat me with bricks and rods, breaking my fingers and hand. They even cut my ears and finger ends with pliers,” the newspaper quoted Hussain as saying. He also alleged that the mob had stripped him to check his private parts, branding his body with a heated iron rod that “peeled his skin off”. One assailant climbed on his chest and throttled him, causing blood to gush from my mouth, Hussain had said. 

An emergency 112 call led the Roh police to the village at around 2.30 a.m., The Indian Express quoted a source in the police department as saying. The police rescued the grievously injured Hussain and took him along with several suspects to the police station.

The police took Hussain to the Roh Primary Health Centre (PHC), which then referred him to Nawada Sadar Hospital and finally to VIMS, Pawapuri. He was under treatment at the hospital when he succumbed to his injuries on the night of December 13.

‘Sole breadwinner’

In her police complaint on December 6, Hussain’s wife Shabnam Parveen named 10 residents of Bhattapar village and 10 others who are unidentified.

“Villagers from Bhattapar caught my husband on false theft charges, tied him, beat him brutally, branded him with a hot rod, broke his hand, cut his ear with pliers, and tortured him in other ways,” Indian Express quoted the complaint, cited in the FIR, as saying. Parveen also alleged that when she reached Bhattapar with her brothers-in-law, villagers “abused and threatened” them as well.

The FIR invokes Sections 190, 191(2) and 191(3) (unlawful assembly and rioting), 126(2), 115(2), 117 and 118 (grievous hurt and use of dangerous means), 109 and 74 (abetment and common intention), and 303(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, with murder charges added after Hussain succumbed to his injuries.

“He was the sole breadwinner of the family. He had been in the business for the last 20 years, but he never faced any trouble. What went wrong and why he was targeted is to be probed by police,” The New Indian Express quoted Parveen as saying.

A post-mortem has been conducted, according to the Indian Express news report. Eight people have been either arrested or detained so far. These include Sonu Kumar, Ranjan Kumar, Sachin Kumar, and Shri Kumar, according to the report by The New Indian Express.

A special team under the SDPO Sadar arrested four suspects within 24 hours, and four more on December 13, the Indian Express quoted Nawada SP Abhinav Dhiman as saying. He added that the police are conducting raids to “trace the rest”.

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