A 50-year-old Muslim man Nazir Ahmad was beaten to death by cow vigilantes near Brakhad village of Madhya Pradesh’s Narmadapuram district on Tuesday.
Ahmad, a resident of Maharashtra’s Amravati was allegedly transporting cows along with Shaikh Lala (38) and Sayed Mushtaq (40) from nearby village named Nanderwada of Narmadapuram district when a group of cow vigilantes armed with sticks and rods, stopped the truck and assaulted them, The Wire quoted cops as saying.
It was around 12:30 am on Tuesday midnight.
Lala who was driving the truck said that they were only taking the cows to Amravati to sell them in the animal fair.
Ahmad was hit on the head and succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. The two others have reported multiple injuries and are under treatment at the district hospital.
“We had hardly travelled 8-10 kilometres when they blocked our road, forced us to come out of the truck and attacked us without enquiring into anything. They were armed with sticks and rods and killed Ahmad,” one of the survivors, Shiakh Lala said to reporters.
Madhya Pradesh have lodged two FIRs in connection with the incident, one against attackers and another against the survivors.
While the FIR against assailants does not include any names, the second FIR includes names of two Muslim men.
“An FIR was lodged against 12 unidentified people under section 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 147 (rioting) and 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon) of the Indian Penal Code while another FIR was registered against the two survivors for illegally transporting the cows. Soon we will make the arrests,” Narmadapuram Superintendent of Police Gurkaran Singh said to The Wire.
