Seven people of the Muslim community in Nayabans village have been charged with cow slaughter, the alleged incident that triggered a mob to kill a police officer in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr on Monday, 3 December.
The FIR, lodged on the day of the incident at the Chingrawathi police post, has also named two minor boys aged 11 and 12. The remaining five accused were not present at the village on the day violence erupted, Scroll reported, quoting several villagers of Nayabans.
The complainant is the District Chief of Hindu outfit Bajrang Dal, Yogesh Raj, who has been named as the prime accused in a separate FIR over the murder of police Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh during the riot on Monday.
Rehman*, the minor boy’s father and uncle of the other accused, said the police came to their house. After preliminary interrogation, the police took the kids along with him to the police station.
Rehman is heard saying in a video accessed by The Quint.
“I was taken to the police station where they kept me for almost four hours. Do you think these kids can do something like what they have been accused of?”
The Quint reached out to the Siana police station regarding the FIR, but there has been no response at the time of writing this article.
According to a News18 report, around 70 policemen had visited the Nayabans village, 45 kilometres from Bulandshahr, on Monday to identify the seven accused of cow slaughter. Standing at the centre of the village, the policemen called out the accused, and the two minors were the only ones whose names matched, the report said.
Police Inspector Subodh Kumar and a civilian were killed by an angry mob in violence that broke out over rumours of cow slaughter in Bulandshahr on Monday.
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the minors.
(With inputs from News18 and Scroll)
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