Cow vigilantes allegedly lynch Muslim trader in Karnataka
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Bengaluru: In Karnataka, self-styled cow vigilantes allegedly lynched a man on Saturday. Puneet Kerehalli, the accused, stopped the Muslim cattle trader Idris Pasha when the latter was transporting cattle with the required papers. Puneet demanded Rs 2 lakh, and when Idris refused to pay, Puneet beat him, and his associate up, NDTV reported.
The victim’s body was found on a road at the Sathnur Village in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka.
The Indian Express reports that there was a third person, Syed Zaheer, with Pasha and his associate, Irfan. Zaheer told TIE that the three were together transporting cattle around midnight on Friday. They had 16 cattle in their lorry. In front of the Sathanpur police station, some people claiming to be cow vigilantes intercepted them and started to ask them to go to Pakistan before attacking them. Seeing this, Pasha and Irfan ran away, but he stayed there. A police constable rushed towards the commotion and took them to the station, he said, adding that he spent the night there.
It was the next morning he learnt from a police officer that Pasha was killed.
Puneet Kerehalli, the leader of a cow-protection force, is absconding, while the police registered a case on charges of murder, wrongful restraint, and intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, NDTV reports.
Based on Kerehalli’s complaint, the Sathanur police have booked Zaheer and others under sections of the Karnataka Prevention of Cow Slaughter and Cattle Prevention Act, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Transportation of Animals Act, and Motor Vehicles Act, TIE reports.
The incident happened when the state was going to polls the next month, and the place where it happened was the constituency of Congress state president DK Shivakumar.