2 LYNCHED FOR ‘CATTLE LIFTING’
Locals allege the duo stole 13 buffaloes from a cow shed in Jharkhand
A mob on Wednesday lynched two Muslim men branding them as cattle rustlers at the tribal dominated Dullu village under Deodand police station in Godda district, about 330 km northeast of the state capital Ranchi, police said on Wednesday.
According to police, the Dullu village incident took place on Wednesday morning when villagers caught hold of two Muslim men Sirabuddin Ansari, 35, and Murtaza Ansari, 30, of adjoining villages with cattle and accused them of being cattle lifters. They alleged that they had stolen 13 buffaloes from the cow shed of one Munshi Murmu of Dullu village on Tuesday night.
According to villagers, the mob while searching for the buffaloes found five men towing the stolen cattle at nearby Bankatti locality. They chased them and caught two while the other three fled. The mob beat them up till they died on the spot.
“The villagers were allegedly searching for the buffaloes and on Wednesday morning they caught two persons with the cattle at Bankatti area and beat them to death,” said Godda superintendent of police Rajiv Kumar Singh.
He added that four persons-Munshi Murmu, Kaleshwar Soren, Kishan Tudu and Harjohan Kisku--have been arrested in connection with the lynching. “The situation is fully under control,” the SP said.
“The deceased Sirabuddin Ansari, a resident of nearby Muslim dominated Taaljhari village, had a criminal background and several cases against him are pending at different police stations. The other deceased Murtaza Ansari was a resident of Banjhi village,” Singh added. The incident is a reminder of a series of mob lynching cases of Muslim cattle traders that rocked the state last
year with chief minister Raghubar Das pulling up the police machinery and fixing responsibility of officers for any mob lynching incident reported from their area. The incidents also featured in Parliament, with several opposition leaders questioning the government’s seriousness in cracking down on cow vigilantism.
Last year, BJP-ruled Jharkhand witnessed a series of mob lynching cases involving Muslim cattle traders. In May, a mob lyn- ched four Muslim cattle traders at a village in Saraikelka Kharswan district after accusing them of being child traffickers. In the following month, a 100-strong mob in Ramgarh lynched a 55-- year-old Muslim trader Alimud- din for “carrying beef in his car”.
The Ramgarh lynching case was the first case related to cow vigilantism in which 12 accused had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a special fast track court within a record six-month time.