Another man ‘shot dead’ by cow vigilantes in Alwar

Jaipur: Seven months after Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer who was lynched by cow vigilantes in Alwar, a man was shot dead by cow vigilantes in Alwar district of Rajasthan.

The incident took place in the small hours of Friday. But even after two days of the murder, no FIR has been filed. Ummar Khan and Tahir Khan were transporting the cows to Bharatpur when they were waylaid by the mob and assaulted. Ummar, 32, died of a bullet wound. 

His body was found around 12 km from the Ramgarh police station. He is survived by his wife and eight children. The two others received minor injuries and ran away from the scene. One of them, Tahir Muhammad, is being treated at a hospital in Haryana. “The attack took place at around 5 am on Friday,” said Sher Muhamm-ad, sadar (president) of district Meo panchayat.  He alleged that Umar was killed by gaurakshaks and they tried to show the death as an accident by placing his body on railway tracks. 

The family members recognised Ummar from his slippers. While the police remained tight-lipped about the incident, refusing to answer calls made by this newspaper, the Meo community has alleged an attempt to cover up the incident. 

Several members of the Meo Muslim community gathered outside the district hospital in Alwar and demanded action against the cow vigilante groups. Ummar Khan’s relatives filed a complaint against the assailants and alleged that Khan was shot dead by gaurakshkas. “We won’t accept the body till the case is registered and a copy of the FIR is given to us,” said Maulana Hanif, vice-president of Jamait-Ul-Rajasthan. 

Alleging cover-up, Maulana Hanif said that two bullets were shot at Ummar — one in his chest and the other went through his left shoulder but the doctors now say that they can’t trace bullet marks in the body. “To remove evidence, they have disfigured the body,” he alleged. 

Superintendent of police Rahul Prakash and SHO Govindgarh refused to make any comment. In-charge of the PCR stated that he has not received any information from the Govindgarh police station about this incident.

The latest incident comes months after Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, was brutally beaten to death by cow vigilantes in Alwar district. Khan and at least four others were injured when a mob had attacked nearly 15 persons hailing from Haryana, while transporting cows in vehicles on the Behror highway in Alwar district on April 5. 

In September, the Rajasthan police had given a clean chit to the six people named in the Pehlu Khan lynching incident. Following this, Khan’s family had sought a court-monitored probe into the killing and said the case must be shifted out of the state.