Five Held, Two Cops Suspended For Jharkhand Lynching

Ranchi: Five men have been arrested and two police officers suspended amid nationwide outrage over the fatal mob attack on a man in Jharkhand last week, reports NDTV.

The police are on the lookout for at least one more person accused of beating 24-year-old Tabrez Ansari last Tuesday. Tabrez was going to Saraikela-Kharsawan’s Karsova from Jamshedpur with some friends, when a mob attacked them barely 5km from home, a relative said.

Accused of stealing a two-wheeler, Tabrez was tied to a pole and beaten for hours. After he fell unconscious he was handed over to the police and declared dead after he was taken to a hospital on Saturday.

His family has alleged that he had died long before he was taken to a hospital, that they were not allowed to meet him and despite their appeals, the police had not arranged for his proper treatment. They also alleged that Tabrez’s attackers had forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”.

“I have nobody, no in-laws. How will I survive? I want justice,” Tabrez’s wife Shahista Parveen said.

A minister in Jharkhand, meanwhile, said it was wrong to politicise mob killings. The trend these days, minister CP Singh said, was to “associate such incidents with the BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal. It is a time of ‘cut and paste’ – who fits what words where is difficult to say”.

After reports of the incident on Sunday, Hyderabad politician Asaduddin Owaisi had tweeted: “This is the pattern with almost all lynchings. First, a Muslim is murdered by cow lovers. Then the most ridiculous excuses begin: a ‘suspicion’ of beef possession, theft, smuggling & love jihad. So much for sabka vishwas when we can be killed over mere ‘suspicions’.”