Patna: Police in Bihar have registered a case against 59 persons for allegedly assaulting Muslim villagers on suspicion that they had eaten beef. The registration of the case comes three days after the victims were attacked by a mob who included members from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a Hindu nationalist outfit.
According to the official complaint, the angry mob, carrying wooden logs and bamboo sticks, barged into the house of Mohammad Shahabuddin at Dumra village, in West Champaran district, on Thursday morning and assaulted him on the suspicion of killing a cow.
Reports said when Shahabuddin’s neighbours rushed to help him, they too were confined to a room and beaten up. The mob’s members were chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (Victory for Mother India). The irate group refused to leave the house even after police showed up, telling officials the alleged beef eaters should be left with them to face “justice”, said reports.
The mob only withdrew when police officers arrested seven Muslim villagers. They were later sent to jail.
The police, however, are yet to arrest the persons accused of assaulting the villagers. “We conducted raid[s] at various hideouts of the accused but none were arrested. All are absconding,” a senior police official in charge of investigation, Sanjay Jha, told media today.
This is the second incident of beef-related attacks in Bihar in the past fortnight since the Nitish Kumar government pulled out of the erstwhile ruling Grand Alliance and formed a government with Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) last month in a peculiar shift of power in the state.
On August 3, a mob of cow vigilantes had intercepted a truck carrying beef from an illegal slaughter house in Bhojpur district and had beaten three persons including the truck driver. All were later arrested and sent to jail.
The local administration shut down the illegally-functioning slaughter house. In another related action, the state government has announced the decision to shut down all the 150-odd slaughter houses running in the state, which means Bihar will be left with only two legal slaughter houses located in Araia district, more than 300km east of Patna.
“At no cost, we will allow slaughter of animals in the state. We have decided to review the process of granting licences to the slaughter houses,” Bihar animal husbandry minister Pashupati Kumar Paras announced. He also said he has sought a detailed report all the slaughter houses running in the state from the department secretary.
The people of Bihar had given mandate to the three-party Grand Alliance (GA) — comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), led by Lalu Prasad; Janata Dal United (JD-U), left by Nitish Kumar; and the Congress — but Kumar in a sudden move broke ranks and joined the BJP.
The GA won 178 seats in 243-member Bihar assembly against 58 won by the BJP, which was given the mandate to sit in the Opposition. But now the BJP has come to power, thanks to Kumar’s “benevolence”.
