LUCKNOW: Amidst the raging debate over spate in the incidents of lynching and mob violence, four men-two Hindus and two Muslims-were thrashed, dragged and abused by a mob of villagers on the charges of cattle theft in Hathras, 200 km from national capital, on early Wednesday morning.
The men were assaulted after the residents of Nagla Mandhati village under Hasayan police station in Purdilnagar locality of Hathras caught them transporting a dead buffalo in a four wheeler pick-up van. The infuriated villagers vent their ire on four men charging them with not only stealing the cattle but also killing it.
However, in the melee, someone informed the cops at Hasayan police station. SO Awadhesh Kumar Singh rushed to the village with the force to control the violent mob who were beating up the four men. After the assurance from SO Singh, the mob handed over the four men to the cops. Villagers alleged that they caught the men taking away the dead buffalo in a pick-up van.
The buffalo had been poisoned by the four, they alleged. All four were badly beaten, dragged and abused by the mob of villagers, shows a video shot by a local and released to social media after the incident. It shows the victims lying on the ground after the assault and surrounded by the villagers.
One of the victims is seen pleading to the mob that he was not a cattle thief and that he had gone to the village to pick up a dead buffalo on the instructions of a contractor he works for. The man is claiming that he was asked to ferry the buffalo to a designated spot decided by the contractor.
However, the crowd was not ready to buy his argument. Another mobile video in circulation shows a police officer asking the angry villagers to let the police take the men into their custody. The police finally managed to rescue the four men from the mob and took them to Hasayan police station around 50 km away from the spot of incident. The police claimed that the buffalo owner was called to establish the facts.
This is the latest in a series of mob attacks that are being reported from various parts of the country. On Tuesday, a Muslim man from Bhopal who worked in a firm in Noida was assaulted by a group of unidentified persons at marriage registrar office in Ghaziabad for going to marry a Hindu girl from Bijnor. In fact, the couple worked together in Noida.