New Delhi: A mob suspecting that two men were smuggling cows killed one and injured the other in Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh district, according to reports quoting police.
The incident took place on the night between June 13 and 14, Additional Director General of Police (Crime), Ravi Prakash Meharda, said.
Indian Express reported police having added that the two men were transporting cattle to Madhya Pradesh when they were attacked. One of them, Pintu, is undergoing treatment in a hospital, while 25-year-old Babu Lal Bhil died after being taken to hospital.
Babu is originally from Madhya Pradesh’s Achalpur, NDTV has reported.
Police have registered murder charges and interrogated around eight people.
The Udaipur Inspector General, too, reached the spot for investigations. Satyavir Singh was quoted by NDTV as having said that police received word of a gang “beating some people carrying cows in their vehicle” at around midnight. When police reached the spot, they discovered that the attackers were from the nearby Raiti village.
“They (the attackers) had snatched away the men’s documents and mobile phones. When the police arrived they ran away… our officers rescued both men and took them to a hospital, where Babu lost his life. Pintu is now in stable condition,” IG Singh is quoted by NDTV as having said.
In 2018, Rajasthan saw the brutal lynching of Rakbar Khan while he was transporting milch cows on foot to their home in Haryana’s Kolgaon from a village in the state’s Alwar. While Rakbar succumbed to injuries after being beaten, his friend Aslam Khan managed to escape, severely injured.
This incident was considered to be a repeat of the Pehlu Khan lynching case and the then Bharatiya Janta Party government in Rajasthan was heavily criticised for encouraging cow vigilantes in the name of ‘gau raksha‘.