A day after Bhiwani deaths, Monu named in another murder case; police refuses to file FIR

Mohit Yadav alias Monu Manesar, a Bajrang Dal member and the face of the cow protection task force of the Haryana government in Gurgaon, has been named in a murder case again.

A complaint has been filed by the family members of Waris Khan, 22, who allegedly died of injuries sustained from getting beaten up by cow vigilantes led by Monu.

However, only a daily diary register entry was recorded at Sadar Tauru police station against Monu and his associates. The police refused to convert the complaint into an FIR citing that Waris had died of injuries sustained in an accident.

According to Waris’s family, Monu had been chasing Waris’s vehicle on the suspicion of smuggling cattle.

The police reports said that a Santro car with Waris, Shokeen and Nafis crashed into a tempo in Haryana’s Tauru around 5 am on January 28. The injured men were taken to the community health centre in Tauru following which Waris and Nafis were referred to the government medical college in Nalhar, Nuh Police said.

Waris died during the treatment, the police said.

The medical board’s autopsy report cited “severe internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity due to rupture of liver due to blunt force injury” as the cause of Waris’s death.

According to the medico-legal report from the CHC in Tauru, Waris was brought to the centre at 7.40 am on January 28 with an injury on the left side of his chin and severe abdominal pain.

However, the police booked the three men, including Waris, under several IPC sections as well as sections of the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act.

A Facebook live on Monu’s page, which was later deleted, showed scenes minutes after the car crash where the cow vigilantes were seen questioning Waris and the other two men, sitting in a car, about their names and villages.

Another video showed Bajrang Dal members, one of whom is armed with a gun, purportedly posing next to the three men in front of their damaged Santro car.

The incident has triggered a new political row.

Monu was earlier named in an FIR filed in connection with the death of two men Junaid and his friend Nasir from Rajasthan whose charred bodies were found inside a burnt vehicle in Haryana’s Bhiwani on Thursday.

Junaid’s cousin, Ismail, had filed an FIR confirming the identity of the discovered bodies saying that both men were kidnapped by members of the Bajrang Dal and that they were murdered.

Police confirmed that the burnt car is the Bolero the two men were driving before they were reported missing from Rajasthan’s Bharatpur.

According to Rajasthan Police, Junaid has five previous cases of cow smuggling registered against him.

‘Bajrang Dal members kidnapped my brother and his associates and took them to several locations and brutally assaulted them. They recorded videos and posted them on social media. If they were not seriously injured in the accident and were in fact involved in cattle smuggling, why did the police not arrest them immediately. We have written to all senior police officers in Haryana asking for a probe to look into these questions, but the police are shielding the cow vigilantes and no action has been taken on our complaint. Instead, the police have registered a false FIR of cattle smuggling against my brother and his two associates’, said Imran, Waris’s elder brother.

Waris’s cousin, Shahid, said the victim was a car mechanic and had tagged along with his two associates, who were going to Bhiwadi to purchase a second-hand car. Shahid claimed he had been told by one of the injured men that Bajrang Dal members had caused their car to crash, as quoted by The Indian Express.

Mohit, 28, a native of Manesar, makes a living sub-letting rooms to labourers in the area. He describes himself as a “gau rakshak” and social activist. In 2011, he joined Bajrang Dal as a district co-coordinator. He has denied all the allegations.