Five men assaulted by gau rakshaks in Alwar, 1 dead // Gau rakshaks killed a dairy farmer, not cattle smuggler

By Dilip -
NB: This terrible tragedy is yet another example of the brutal hooliganism and injustice unleashed on a nation-wide scale by the Sangh Parivar government and its vigilantes. Completey innocent people are viciously attacked by thugs on the look-out for some pretext or other to indulge in violence. It is clear that their extended network of cadre operate with foreknowledge that they will be protected. Here too, in addition to the case against the cow-vigilantes, a case has been lodged against the victims - a well-known ploy by police to assist the accused by giving them a counter-case to bargain with. This kind of lawless behaviour has now become commonplace. In February the ABVP launched a violent attack on a seminar in Ramjas college. No doubt the ringleaders of such acts of violence will be rewarded with election tickets or other perquisites. The Sangh's so-called 'nation-building' will destroy India's social fabric and undermine the constitution and rule of law. Perhaps our judges and policemen and opinion-makers are listening to the voice of conscience. Perhaps not. DS
Two days after he was allegedly attacked by a group of gau rakshaks for transporting cows in Alwar, Pehlu Khan, 55, a resident of Haryana, succumbed to his injuries on Monday night. Police said Khan and at least four others were attacked even as they produced documents to show that they had purchased the cows. “Gau rakshaks affiliated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal stopped four vehicles, near Jaguwas crossing on National Highway 8, on Saturday evening, alleging that they were illegally transporting bovines. These vehicles were coming from Jaipur, and were headed towards Nuh district in Haryana,” said Ramesh Chand Sinsinwar, SHO, Behror police station.

Alwar attack: Gau rakshaks killed a dairy farmer, not cattle smuggler

While they attacked the men in the vehicles, they reportedly allowed one of the drivers, Arjun, to leave. “Five of the victims had to be hospitalised,” said Sinsinwar. “Of these, Pehlu Khan died at a hospital in Alwar on Monday night. A post-mortem was conducted and his body was handed over to his relatives today,” he said. While purported videos of the incident are being circulated on social media, no arrests have been made so far.

“We were returning from a Saturday fair in Jaipur. I had bought two milch cows for Rs 75,000, and I had all the valid documents with me. We were not even trying to hide the cows, as we were taking them in a pick-up truck. At around 6 pm on Saturday, the gau rakshaks stopped our vehicle and asked us our names. They allowed our driver, Arjun, to leave,” said Azmat, 22, who was with Khan in the pick-up truck.

“I told them I had all the documents but they pulled us out of the vehicle and beat us up. They took away Rs 35,000 from me. I later lost consciousness and woke up in a hospital at around 1 am on Sunday,” he said. “Before he died, Pehlu told us that they beat him up and then told him to run, saying ‘tu buddha aadmi h, bhaag’ (you’re an old man, run away)… But they chased him and beat him up again,” said Pehlu’s uncle, Hussain Khan.

Meanwhile, Azmat and the three others who were injured - Irshad, Aarif and Rafiq - returned to Nuh on Tuesday, alleging that they did not receive proper care at the Kailash Hospital in Behror in Alwar. “Everyone at the hospital was looking down at us… Pehlu died because he didn’t receive proper care,” alleged Azmat’s brother, Yusuf, 35. “I reached the hospital on Saturday night but they didn’t allow me to see my brother. I just wanted to know if he was dead or alive. They only granted permission on Sunday morning. We asked the district administration to shift them to another hospital but they did not agree,” said Mohammad Arshad, 23, also Azmat’s brother.

But Shyam Sunder Sharma, director of Kailash Hospital in Behror, denied the charges. “We gave them the best treatment and also gave discount on the fees… Police were posted at the hospital,” he said. “We had lodged an FIR against the gau rakshaks under IPC Sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 147 (destruction of property), 308 (culpable homicide) and 379 (theft). Now, after Khan’s death, we have added Section 302 (murder) as well,” said Sinsinwar. However, the transporters were also booked under the Rajasthan Bovine Animals (Prohibition of Slaughter & Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 1995, he said. Alwar SP Rahul Prakash did not comment on the issue.

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/rajasthan-five-men-assaulted-by-gau-rakshaks-in-alwar-1-dead-4599964/

Also see
State protected hooliganism in Ramjas College
Petition in S C Accuses National Investigation Agency of Soft-Pedaling Hindutva Terror Cases
Public Appeal - Resist degradation of Indian criminal justice system
Apoorvanand - Why Bhagat Singh was not the ultimate militant nationalist he's made out to be
What is to be Undone
The law of killing - a brief history of Indian fascism
The emperor's masks: 'apolitical' RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar
The Supreme Court, Gandhi and the RSS
Love at Work: Mahatma Gandhi's Last Struggle


Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the PUDR stat
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certainty which a c
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested that I might
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, to stare at
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the
Read more

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

By Dilip -
Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait  Rudyard Kipling , To the City of Bombay "Few people who have criticized England from the inside have said bitterer things about her than this gutter patriot" : George Orwell IT WAS a pity that Mr. Eliot should be so much on the defensive in the long essay with which he prefaces this selection of Kipling's poetry, but it was not to be avoided, because before one can even speak about Kipling one has to clear away a legend that has been created by two sets of people who have not read his works. Kipling is in the peculiar position of having been a byword for fifty years. During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there. Mr. Eliot never satisfactorily explains this fact, because in answering the shal
Read more