Now, Kataria denies Zafar was killed
Adding to the controversy surrounding the death of Zafar Hussein, Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria said on Tuesday that the 53-year-old was not lynched and had, instead, died of heart failure.
The minister’s statement during a press conference in Jaipur was at odds with eyewitnesses’ accounts that Hussein was beaten to death by civic officials for objecting to them photographing women defecating in his locality in Pratapgarh on June 16.
Referring to two video clips which surfaced recently, Kataria said, “The civic officials had gone to the locality under ODF (open defecation free) campaign and were gheraoed by locals who were higher in number. Hussein and the civic officials had a heated argument and some pushing and shoving happened between them.”
The clip purportedly showed Hussein threatening and pushing civic officials, and one municipality worker threatening and abusing Hussein in response.
Kataria said the civic officials left after the incident and went to police station to file an FIR against Hussein. “Hussein then went to his home where he fell sick. He was taken to the hospital and was declared dead,” said the minister.
The medical report says he died due to heart failure, he added, and further investigation will be carried out after the forensic science lab report arrives.
The minister acknowledged that Hussein’s kin have stated in the FIR that the civic officials were photographing the defecating women and that their claim would be probed.
Regarding the kin’s claim that Hussein was beaten brutally by civic officials and died as a result, the home minister said that it was not true. He also said that the cases of Hussein and Pehlu Khan, who was lynched by cow protection vigilantes in Alwar in April this year, are being portrayed as if the government killed them.
“Be it Zafar’s case or Pehlu Khan’s case, or the recent incident in Barmer where Tamil Nadu government officials were attacked by vigilantes, the police have taken swift action,” he said.
Kataria was criticized in the past for his controversial remarks on the Pehlu Khan case.
A group of government officials allegedly lynched Hussein in the Rajasthan town on Friday.
A murder case was registered against four officials.
Chief minister Vasundhara Raje was trolled for referring to the death as ‘demise’ in a tweet on Sunday, with several calling her out for her mild choice of words in the alleged lynching case.