Bulandshahr, Assam: Media reports that a 45-year-old man was beaten to death allegedly by members of a Right-wing militant group.The victim was identified as Ghulam Mohammad, a resident of Sohi village that falls under the Pahasu Police Station here. Meanwhile BBC reports that in Assam too, over the past two days two Muslim men have been lynched to death. Both state governments are headed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS)-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The victims of Sunday's attack in Assam's Nagaon district have been identified as Abu Hanifa and Riyazuddin Ali, police said.
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Shockingly, in UP, in what amounts to almost a justification of the violence, Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Arvind Kumar Mishra said a 19-year-old man named Yusuf from Sohi had allegedly kidnapped an 18-year-old Hindu girl, a resident of Fazalpur village, also in the Pahasu area, on 27 April. Yusuf was a distant relative of Ghulam, the victim.
Mishra said the activists saw Ghulam in a mango orchard, then dragged him to a secluded spot and beat him to death. Should Ghulam have been a victim for the alleged crimes of Yusuf? And do we have Mob Rule in the country that justifies the Mob taking ‘Law’ into their own hands?
The ADM further added that the said the men wanted to know about the whereabouts of Yusuf. Despite the ASM clearly knowing who and what the murderers wanted, the SP (city) Man Singh Chauhan said an FIR had been lodged only against the "unidentified activists".
Police in India say two Muslim men have been lynched by a mob which accused them of trying to steal cows for slaughter.
The killings in the north-eastern state of Assam are the latest in a series of attacks blamed on religious tensions over the treatment of cows.A section of Hindus alone consider cows sacred and killing them is illegal in several states.
A Human Rights Watch report last week said at least 10 Muslims had been killed over the issue since May 2015. "They were chased and beaten with sticks by villagers who said the two men were trying to steal cows from their grazing field," news agency AFP quoted senior police official Debaraj Upadhyay as saying.
"By the time we took them to the hospital at night they had succumbed to their injuries."A murder case has been registered and two people have been detained for questioning, police said.
The Human Rights Watch report says that since the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party formed India's federal government in 2014, attacks against Muslims and Dalits (formerly known as untouchables) have risen over rumours that they sold, bought or killed cows for beef.
The BJP now also governs Assam and is in power in 11 states on its own and in another four as an alliance partner with others. Those killed in the violent vigilante campaign against beef consumption in India include a 12-year-old boy.Many states are now actively enforcing bans on cow slaughter and in March, the western state of Gujarat passed a law making the slaughter of cows punishable with life imprisonment.
Worse still than the majoritarian government bans, vigilante groups who portray themselves as protectors of cows have also been active in several states. The groups routinely check vehicles and often beat up cattle traders.