PATNA: Suspected cow vigilantes assaulted two youths in Bihar for transporting beef, leaving them seriously wounded. The police have arrested the youths and admitted them to the hospital.
Police said the youths identified as Noor Mohammad and Shakeel Quraishi were carrying beef on their bike to supply in the local Akorhi Gola market in Rohtas district when a group of cow vigilantes caught them and assaulted them badly. Both sustained serious injuries in the incident.
In the meantime someone informed the local police which reached the spot and rescued the youths from the clutches of the mob. However, the police arrested them for carrying prohibited meat. The arrested youths told the police that they had brought the meat from a local butchery and were going to sell in the nearby markets when the mob attacked them.
“Both were thrashed and their bike damaged when they were going to transport meat in the areas. We have admitted them to the hospital for treatment,” a local police official Mohammad Anwar Javed Ansari told the media on Thursday.
The beef-related attacks have registered a sudden increase in recent months, causing panic among the Muslim community people. Last month, a group of cow vigilantes badly assaulted the driver and cleaner of a vehicle in Bihar’s Bhojpur district on the suspicion of carrying beef. They also seized the vehicle.
The same month, a nationalist Hindu outfit, Bajrang Dal supporters assaulted three persons for carrying cattle for slaughter in Vaishali district of Bihar. The attackers dragged three men out of the vehicle carrying bull and thrashed them badly in full public view, leaving them severely injured. The injured persons were admitted to a local hospital for treatment.
In June this year, the cow vigilantes had assaulted another two men for carrying buffaloes in Gopalgnaj district. The victims were carrying the cattle when the mob intercepted the vehicle, dragged the persons sitting inside and beat them bamboo sticks. The mob also torched the vehicle after taking out the cattle.
In August last year, cow vigilante groups had assaulted Muslim villagers in West Champaran district on the suspicion that they had eaten beef after which the police registered a case against 59 persons. According to complaint registered with the police, the angry mob carrying wooden logs and bamboo sticks in hands barged into the house of Mohammad Shahabuddin at Dumra village and assaulted him on the suspicion of killing a cow.
