Muslim Man Beaten To Death In Bihar, Video Points To Cow Vigilantes
Mr Khaleel's dead body was recovered from the bank of the Burhi Gandak river on Friday evening.
Patna:
A disturbing video of a young Muslim man in Bihar being harassed by self-professed cow vigilantes has caused a stir on social media after local media reported that he was allegedly beaten to death and his body buried in a ditch. Some reports claim the assailants tried to burn the body by dousing it with petrol and setting it on fire. They then allegedly sprayed salt on his body and buried it so that it would decay faster.
In the video, Mohammad Khaleel Alam, a Janata Dal (United) party member from Samastipur district can be seen pleading to his attackers with folded hands to spare him. The assailants, not visible in the video footage, can be heard forcing the victim to disclose the locations where cows are slaughtered and name the people involved in selling beef.
They ask him how much beef he has consumed in his life and if he fed it to his children as well. They questioned him on whether the Quran instructs him to consume beef, to which he replies that it doesn’t.
The video, loaded with hate speech and expletives, has been circulated widely as another incident of hate crime against Muslims. The local police, however, deny the allegation and claim it’s a diversionary tactic to cover up a murder.
NDTV cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video.
Bihar’s Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav tweeted a Hindi news clipping of the incident late last night and attacked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“Law and order have completely disappeared under Bihar’s NDA government. A Muslim youth who was himself a leader of the JD(U) was beaten, burnt alive and buried. Nitish Kumar should tell us why such incidents keep happening in Bihar. Why are people taking the law into their own hands?” he tweeted in Hindi.
Mr Khaleel’s dead body was recovered from the bank of the Burhi Gandak river on Friday evening, four days after his family lodged a missing person’s report.
According to local police, the victim’s family members filed a report on February 16. For the next few days, they kept receiving calls from the victim’s mobile number asking for money. The caller claimed that he had borrowed ₹ 5 lakh and threatened to sell his kidney if the family delayed the payment.
On February 19, his body was recovered from the river bank where it was buried in the sand. However, on Tuesday, the local police received a video where he is being asked about his role in cattle smuggling.
The police have claimed that this video was recorded just to divert attention and give a communal colour to the murder.
