New Delhi (Sputnik): A man was beaten to death while his friend is fighting for life in the hospital after a mob attacked them on suspicion of cow slaughter in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
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Police investigations have revealed that two local men spotted 45-year-old Riyaz and his 33-year-old friend Shakeel near the carcass of a slaughtered bull. The two men then alerted the villagers who came armed with sticks to beat Riyaz and Shakeel. When a passerby saw the duo lying unconscious in a pool of blood, he dialed the police who immediately rushed to the spot.
Four men belonging to the local Gond tribe have been arrested for the lynching and booked for murder, attempt to murder and crime with common intent.
Cases have also been registered against the deceased and the injured under the Madhya Pradesh Cow Slaughter Ban Act 2004 and the Madhya Pradesh Cattle Preservation Act 1959 on the complaint of locals.
The biggest apathy of Indian state is that when a cow is assumed to be killed people unlawfully lynch a person to death, but when a bridge falls down killing humans we show ultimate patience & respect for law & wait for yrs for hopeless committees to be formed & give reports
— INDIA FIRST (@chirag_jhgandhi) May 17, 2018
Welcome to cow republic of India. Another Muslim lynched to death in Madya Pradesh over the suspicion of cow slaughter. https://t.co/Cm2fxhqdwY
— Kabir (@kabwrites) May 20, 2018
Cow protection and vigilantism in India has been a hot topic of public discourse in the recent past, especially after the right-wing BJP coming to power in early 2014. The issue gained much attention in 2015 when 60-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched by villagers in Dadri near the National Capital Region for allegedly possessing beef. Since then, several cases of violence in the name of cow vigilantism have been sporadically reported.
