New Delhi, Oct 4 (PTI): Home Minister Rajnath Singh today termed the lynching of a man in Dadri over rumour of eating beef eating as "unfortunate" and said it should not be given any "communal colour".

"It was an unfortunate incident. But it is not proper to give communal colour to it," he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

The Home Minister also said no one should do politics over the incident.

"The incident should not be politicised," he said, as political leaders continued to make a beeline to Bishada village in Dadri where Iqlakh, 50, was beaten to death by a mob on Monday night after a public announcement from the local temple that a calf had been slaughtered and his family had eaten beef.

His 22-year-old son Danish who was also attacked is battling for life at a hospital following two brain surgeries.

The incident has sparked outrage in the country, with parties attacking the BJP alleging that the killing was a result of its "politics of hatred".

Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, who is also the local BJP MP, had claimed that it was an "accident" and had rejected allegations that it was a "premeditated murder".

Earlier Report

BJP leader’s son among two held for lynching

Greater Noida, Oct 4 (ToI) : Two youth, one of them the son of a local BJP leader, were arrested on Saturday for allegedly playing a key role in the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq at his home in Bisada village on Monday night. Akhlaq was lynched on the suspicion that he had killed a brown spotted calf and stored its meat in his refrigerator.

The two -- Vishal and Shivam - were picked up from the Noida bus depot, when they were trying to leave the city, deputy superintendent of police Anurag Singh said. Vishal is the son of local BJP leader Sanjay Rana, whose role the Akhlaq family had mentioned in its FIR. TOI was the only paper to report this. Vishal works in an advertising company in Okhla, Delhi, while Shivam is a student.

Police said the two were among the four key accused. The other two, Saurabh and Rupender, are still missing.

Meanwhile, political leaders including Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi made a beeline on Saturday for this Thakur-dominated village in the Dadri area of Greater Noida.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, however, has stayed away from the village, ostensibly because of the 'Noida jinx' - there is a deep superstition that whoever visits Noida loses the next election in UP. Sources said he has summoned the family to Lucknow.

On Saturday, the mood in the village was hostile, with some openly blaming the media for biased coverage. In the morning, a mob of some 100 women chased journalists and damaged the OB van of a TV channel. A TOI correspondent was also hurt in the scuffle.

Akhilesh had earlier announced that the accused would be detained under the stringent National Security Act. UP home secretary Debasish Panda reiterated this on Saturday. Slapping the NSA will allow the police to detain the accused for up to 12 months.

The police have so far arrested eight of the 10 accused. According to the police, four of them, including Vishal and Shivam, played a key role.

A senior police official said that on Monday night, a child in Bisada apparently spotted Akhlaq dumping some meat in a plastic bag near a transformer close to his house. The boy told some locals about this.

Vishal, Shivam, Saurabh and Rupender then reportedly went to the spot around 10.15pm and checked the plastic bag. A day before Eid, a brown spotted calf had apparently gone missing from the village, and the four immediately concluded that the meat in the plastic bag was that of the calf, which, therefore, must have been slaughtered.

They then went to the temple and woke the priest up, and got him to operate the loudspeaker, from which they announced that Akhlaq had slaughtered the brown calf and its meat was in his house. They also asked people to gather outside Akhlaq's house.

"Around 10.30 pm, the four entered Akhlaq's house and asked to check his refrigerator. They found meat there. An argument followed and then they started thrashing Akhlaq. They misbehaved with his wife, mother and daughter. They dragged him to the main road near the transformer, where other people were also standing. While thrashing him, a person hit him on the head with a brick, which killed him," the police official said.

Meanwhile, some elderly people informed the police about the incident. A police team reached the spot by 11 pm, but by then the mob had vanished, leaving Akhlaq and his younger son, Danish, in a critical condition. Akhlaq subsequently died.

The police said the role of BJP leader Sanjay Rana and of the priest is also under the scanner. The priest has kept changing his statements. "Earlier he had said he was forced to make announcements over the temple loudspeaker, but later he said that the accused had made the announcements themselves. Some locals informed the police that it was not the priest's voice they heard," the official added.