New Delhi, Apr 6 (Deccan Chronicle): Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday asserted that the killing of a 55-year-old man by cow vigilantes in Rajasthan’s Alwar district did not take place.
The minister was responding to Opposition’s protest in Rajya Sabha against the incident.
“No such incident, as being reported, has taken place on the ground. The media reports that are being cited, the concerned state government has already condemned,” the Indian Express quoted Naqvi as saying.
In reply to Naqvi’s claim, Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “I am extremely sorry that the minister is so ill-informed. Even the New York Times knows and the minister doesn't know”.
Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien said the matter was serious and that he was not convinced with the versions of Naqvi and the Opposition. He instructed Naqvi to ask Home Minister Rajnath Singh to submit a report to the House. “I cannot go by media reports,” Kurien said.
Attacking the government over the incident, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday tweeted that, “All right thinking Indians must condemn this blind brutality. We expect government to take strict action against those responsible.”
He added that, "When government abdicates responsibility and allows lynch mobs to rule, tragedies of immense proportions follow. Shocking breakdown of law and order in Alwar".
Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, and four others, including his two sons, were beaten brutally allegedly by a group of cow vigilantes. Khan died at a hospital in Alwar district on Monday night. Police have arrested three persons in connection with the incident.
They were on their way towards Haryana from Jaipur when the vigilantes intercepted two of their vehicles in Behror on the Jaipur-Delhi national highway. Pehlu Khan, his sons Aarif (22) and Irshad (25) were in the first van, while two more persons Ajmat (28) and Sharif (24) were in the second. All of them were thrashed and their vans damaged.
The remaining vans were stopped by the police, in which 11 people were found and arrested under relevant sections of the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, ASI of Behror police station Vikram Singh said.
Following Khan's death, a case of murder was registered against six people, namely Om Yadav, Hukamchand Yadav, Naveen Sharma, Sudhir Yadav, Rahul Saini and Jagmal, while 200 other "unidentified" people were listed as accused.