New Delhi: A man was assaulted and his house set on fire by a mob in a Jharkhand village about 200km from state capital Ranchi, after they allegedly found a headless carcass of a cow outside his house.

According to police, a 200-strong crowd attacked Usman Ansari on Tuesday evening after some people reported having seen a cow carcass outside his house in Betia Hatianand village of Girdih district.

“The local villagers found a carcass that was missing its head and assumed that Ansari had slaughtered the cow. Police had to resort to baton-charge to quell the mob so that the victim and his family could be saved,” Giridih Superintendent of Police Akhilesh B. Variar told media on Wednesday.

The police also opened fire to disperse the crowd, which resorted to stone pelting.

“A mob carrying sticks and stones descended on Ansari’s house and beat him up. When police reached the village, the crowd had surrounded the house. The mob clashed the police team and set the house on fire. We had to ask for reinforcements and it took them two hours to bring the situation under control,” Giridih Deputy Commissioner of Police Uma Shankar Singh told reporters.

Ansari was being treated in a hospital in Dhanbad. His family has moved to a safer location. So far no arrest has been made in the case.

About 50 policemen were injured while trying to save Ansari.

“We immediately rescued Ansari and his family members. However, when the police tried to take him to hospital, there was resistance from the crowd. There was heavy stone-pelting. We had to open fire in the air. The mob was highly charged and nearly 50 of our men sustained injuries in the stone-pelting. The situation has been brought under control,” Jharkhand police spokesperson RK Mullik told Gulf News.

One person, identified as Krishna Pandit, was injured when the police resorted to air firing.

Reacting to the attack, Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan said, “what is happening to human rights? The government is responsible for supporting these groups. You can’t attack a person just because a dead animal was found outside the house.”

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said, “this is mobocracy, not democracy.”

The incident is the latest in a string of attacks, mainly against ‘Dalits’ (people belonging to lower castes) and Muslims in the name of cow protection.

Last week, a Haryana teenager was lynched by his co-passengers in a train after an argument. The crowd called him and his two brothers as beef-eaters.

On June 22, three people were lynched in West Bengal’s North Dinajpur district after they were allegedly caught stealing cows from a house.