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Beef Consumption Rumor Leads To Man’s Lynching In Northern India.
A 50-year old Muslim man has been killed by a mob in a village near the Indian capital New Delhi, after rumors spread in the area that the man’s family had consumed and stored beef at their home.
“I cannot say I am surprised,” said Zahir Janmohamed, a former advocacy director at Amnesty International who writes about Indian society.
The attack occurred in Dadri. Word reportedly spread in a Hindu temple that Mohammad Ikhlaq, 50, had killed and prepared beef in celebration of Eid al-Adha, when Muslims slaughter an animal in recognition of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, to God.
“They dragged my brother and father outside the room and used bricks which they found under his bed to beat them. My father was taken outside the house and beaten to death,” said 18-year-old Sajida Ikhlaq, according to the newspaper Indian Express. “They also tried to molest me and hit my grandmother on her face. They threatened to kill me if I said a word to the police.”
Reports said 200 people attacked the household. Mohammad Ikhlaq died, and his 22-year-old son is now in the hospital.
Slaughtering cows, a holy animal for Hindus, is illegal in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where Dadri is located. Sajida claimed the meat that rioters found in her family’s refrigerator was mutton.
“The police have taken it for examination,” she told Indian Express. “If the results prove that it was not beef, will they bring back my dead father?”
Police reportedly arrested six people, and are now searching for another four alleged assailants. Security forces have flooded into Dadri to keep the peace, but they’ve clashed with demonstrators who are calling for prosecutors to seek the death penalty against participants in the mob. A demonstrator was reportedly shot in the chaos on Tuesday.
The lynching was only the latest flare-up of Hindu extremism and violence in India in recent years under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a nationalist who has promoted Hinduism despite India’s official secularism. Since he took office last year, Modi has often said Hinduism is not a religion but a “way of life” that should influence policy.
Agencies/Canadajournal
