Residents of Bishahra village in Dadri moved a petition in the Gautam Budh Nagar court on Thursday seeking an FIR against the family of Mohammad Akhlaq for alleged cow slaughter.
Akhlaq was lynched in September last year over rumours that his family had stored beef in its house.
The villagers’ plea was accepted by the court of Judicial Magistrate Vijay Kumar who asked the police why an FIR over this issue was not registered when the villagers approached the local police station. The court is scheduled to hear the matter on June 13. The move came two days after the villagers defied the prohibitory orders to organise a panchayat on the issue.
The residents filed the petition under Section 156(3) of CrPC with a request to direct the police to lodge an FIR against Akhlaq's family members. Section 156(3) empowers a magistrate to order an FIR and consequent investigation by the police against those named in the complaint.
Forced to do so
“After every cognizable offence, the local police is bound to register an FIR. But in this case of cow slaughter, despite several visits by residents of Bishahra village to the local police station, the police did not register an FIR. So finally they were forced to move this petition,” said Ram Sharan Nagar, the lawyer for the villagers.
Eighteen residents of Bishahra are in jail on charges of lynching Akhlaq.
Last week when the family members of the accused approached the local police with their complaint to file a case of cow slaughter against Akhlaq’s family, the police official accepted the complaint but said that an FIR would not be directly registered. Later, the cops initiated an investigation on the basis of their complaint.
Forensic report
The villagers attached the forensic report of a Mathura lab which declared that the meat at the centre of Akhlaq’s lynching episode was “beef”.
The recovery memo prepared by the police, however, had revealed that the meat sample, which was declared as “beef” by the Mathura forensic lab, was collected not from Akhlak's house but from the place where the mob had allegedly gathered to attack Akhlaq.
‘Isn’t law same?’
“Why should only we suffer? Isn’t the law same for everybody living in this country? Our children are being victimised for getting angry at the slaughter of mother cow,” Ombir, a resident of the village, who had gone to the court, told The Hindu .
