Man’s body found on Alwar tracks, family blame cow vigilantes
ALWAR/JAIPUR: A group of men have claimed that the body of a 35-year-old man found on railway tracks in Rajasthan’s Alwar was that of their relative’s and alleged that he was shot dead by cow vigilantes for transporting cattle, triggering tension in the region.
But police said they were investigating two different cases — that of the man’s body found on tracks in Ramgarh area on Friday, and that of a badly-damaged pickup van with five cows and a dead one found about 15km away in Fahadi village of Govind Garh area on the same day — and refused to draw connections between the two for now.
Maulana Haneef, a social worker, said the body belonged to Umar Mohammed, a dairy farmer who along with Tahir Khan and Jabba were taking their pet cows to Ghat Mika village from Bharatpur on Friday night when some people opened fire on them near Govindgarh, killing Mohammad on the spot.
Tahir suffered a bullet wound and was taken to a hospital in Ferozepur in Haryana while Jabba was not traceable, he said.
Jamshed Khan, village head of Tuleda, leading the Meo community in a sit-in outside the local hospital mortuary, said VHP workers were behind the shooting although it was a matter of investigation as to how Mohammed’s body was found on tracks, far from the place of incident.
“The Meo community will not accept the corpse until and unless the perpetrators are brought to justice. Till then, we will be sitting on dharna outside the hospital gates,” he said.
Anil Beniwal, assistant superintendent of police, Alwar (south), said the incident was being wrongly presented by combining two different incidents.
“We have found one body in Ramgarh on railway tracks while police have found five cows and a dead one in a pickup near Govindgarh,” he said.
“These two are different occurrences while the victim party is viewing them in concurrence, which is a matter of investigation. Victim party claims that a group of gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes) attacked them and they were taking the name of one Rakesh repeatedly,” said Beniwal.
Ramgarh station house officer, Ajit Singh, said the body found on tracks had several injuries on it, suggesting that a train had passed over it. Police said it was so mangled that they could not confirm whether it had bullet injuries.
Beniwal said efforts are being made to identify the deceased.