 "Cow vigilantes strike in Nagpur: 40-year-old brutally assaulted for 'carrying beef'; four arrested")
A 40-year-old man was reportedly thrashed by four men in Nagpur’s Bharsingi area on Wednesday, on the suspicion of carrying cow meat. All four accused have been arrested in the case based on video evidence, News18 said. News agency ANI tweeted a video of the purported incident of cow vigilantism, where a man can be seen being dragged off his two-wheeler and assaulted by some men while people around him remained mute spectators.
#WATCH: Man beaten up for allegedly carrying beef in Nagpur's Bharsingi, no arrests have been made yet. #Maharashtra (July 12th) pic.twitter.com/JiFAZMfRSS
— ANI (@ANI) July 13, 2017
News18 reported that the man named Ismail Shah was travelling on his two wheeler when four men stopped him and accused him of carrying cow meat. Shah , reportedly pleaded with the accused that the meat was not beef but the assailants paid no heed and continued to thrash the man. The report further added that all accused belong to Prahar Sangathan. The incident is the latest addition to the growing list of incidents of cow-related violence, where self-styled vigilante groups resort to violence in the name of cow protectionism. Lately, a 17-year-old Muslim boy, Hafiz Junaid was stabbed to death when he, along with his brothers, was returning home to Khandawli village in Ballabgarh after shopping for Eid in Delhi. The tiff that started over a train berth blew up, with the mob accusing the Muslim men of carrying beef in their food packets. The rise in incidents of mob lynching and attacks on Muslims and Dalits in the name of cow protectionism have also fuelled widespread public outrage. Hundreds of people gathered across cities in India, with the campaign tag ‘ Not In My Name ’, to protest the orchestrated violence against a select few minority groups across the country, on 28 June. The rise in such incidents come despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's repeated appeals to shun violence in the name of cow vigilantism. Modi, on 29 June had strongly condemned the incidents of violence. “No person in this nation has the right to take the law in his or her own hands… non-violence is our way of living and killing human beings in the name of gau bhakti (reverence for cows) is unacceptable,” the prime minister said.
