Patna: Police in Jharkhand state have arrested four persons after two Muslim villagers were beaten to death on the suspicion of stealing cattle.
According to reports, some 13 buffaloes had been stolen from the house of a local village head Munshi Murmu’s brother in Godda district on Tuesday night after which the local villagers launched a massive search operation the very next morning.
Even as they were searching for the missing cattle, the villagers noticed a group of men carrying the animals with them some two kilometres away. Soon they gave them a hot chase and nabbed two of them while the rest managed to flee.
The nabbed villagers identified as Sirabuddin Ansari (35) and Murtaza Ansari (30) were taken to the nearby jungle. Within moments, crowds of villagers armed with bamboo sticks and other traditional weapons gathered on the spot and began ruthlessly assaulting the Muslim men, eventually killing them on the spot. The victims were residents of a nearby village.
“The villagers claim they had found the missing buffaloes in the possession of the two people. Both were beaten to death later,” the local district superintendent of police Rajiv Kumar Singh told the media on Thursday. According to him, the police have arrested four persons who are currently being interrogated.
Lynching is nothing new to Jharkhand. Last year, seven persons had been lynched by an angry mob near Jamshedpur on suspicion of being child lifters.
The same year, a number of Muslim traders were lynched for allegedly transporting beef in Jharkhand, sparking tension in the areas.
Earlier this year, a local court in Jharkhand sentenced 11 persons to life imprisonment for lynching a Muslim trader Alimuddin Ansari, 55, for allegedly transporting meat in his vehicle in June last year.
This was the first case of cow vigilantism in India where the accused persons were convicted and punished.
