Driver of Pehlu’s truck now ferries vegetables
JAIPUR: Arjun Kumar Yadav doesn’t transport cattle anymore. The 23-year-old, who was driving the truck which cow vigilantes, or gau rakshaks, attacked and publicly lynched dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in April, instead ferries vegetables to villages on Jaipur outskirts, incurring a monthly loss of ₹10,000.
Yadav is also a key witness in Khan’s lynching case, which recently saw the Rajasthan police give clean chit to all six accused whom the victim has named in his dying declaration.
Yadav’s family members, in Chomu town near Jaipur, said the financial loss was a small price to pay as long as it doesn’t risk their son’s life.
On April 1, it was in the pickup truck owned by Yadav that Khan was transporting cattle before he was waylaid and lynched by a mob of cow vigilantes.
Yadav had managed to escape when Khan and other dairy farmers, Azmat and Rafique, were attacked by Hindu radicals on the Jaipur-Delhi highway. The truck has since remained confiscated at the Behror police station while Yadav treated the injuries sustained in the attack.
“I got the pickup truck back last month and had to pay ₹1.5 lakh to repair the damages,” Yadav told HT, reluctant to speak about the mob attack.
The family said ever since the attack, Yadav hasn’t set foot at the weekly cattle market from where Khan had bought the bovines that he was transporting to his native village Jaishinghpur in Haryana’s Nuh.
“We forbade him from transporting cattle again. Now he ferries vegetables. We were concerned that in spite of the permit and all necessary documents, what if he is attacked again by gau rakshaks?” said Girdhari Lal, Yadav’s uncle.
Lal said the decision to stop transporting cattle has also meant a loss of at least ₹10,000.
“Earlier, Arjun used to transport cattle to districts near Jaipur such as Nagaur and used to earn around ₹30,000. Now, by ferrying vegetables, he earns only ₹20,000 which is less but at least his life is not at risk,” said Lal.
From the ₹20,000 he earns, Yadav pays a monthly instalment of ₹16,000 for the ₹4.5 lakh loan he had taken to buy the truck eight months before the attack. “There’s very little money he can save after paying the instalment but our son’s life is more precious than any income. We will never let him transport cattle again,” Lal said.