A sordid combination of rumours, distrust and fear of the unknown played a role in the brutal assault on four Sikh men seeking alms from the residents of this dusty village in the Ajmer district one month ago. The villagers here accuse the ‘sewadars’ of a gurudwara of ‘hypnotising’ them while asking for cash and foodgrain.
The matter came to light earlier this week when a 51-second video of the Sikh men being abused and thrashed went viral on social media. The victims of violence, who fled to their native place of Khairthal in Alwar district, have not returned to Nasirabad to seek action against the youths seen beating them mercilessly in the video.
The incident was similar to a recent episode in Jharkhand where six persons were lynched on the suspicion that they were child lifters.
Villagers at Chainpura, situated 10 km from Nasirabad and dominated by Rawat Rajputs, insist that the incident involving youths from the nearby Chat Sardarpura hamlet was the culmination of tension building up in the area since long. “These Sikh men were around for several days. They asking villagers to donate foodgrain and threatening people who refused to do so,” Ajay Rawat, who owns a wine shop in Pushkar, said on Friday.
The rumours ranged from child trafficking and molestation of women to hypnotism, robbery and selling low quality rice. The minuscule Sikh minority in Nasirabad was unaware of the incident until the video was circulated on social media.
