The witnesses in the Pehlu Khan lynching case, allegedly attacked on the Delhi-Jaipur National Highway on Saturday, were escorted by the police to the Rajasthan-Haryana border on their way back home at Jaisinghpur village in Nuh district.
The witnesses included Pehlu Khan’s sons, Arif and Irshad. Some unidentified persons opened fire from an SUV without a number plate on the car in which four witnesses and their lawyer, Asad Hayat, were travelling on their way to the Behror court on Saturday.
Inspector-General of Police (Jaipur Range) V.K. Singh said here on Sunday that an investigation had been launched after the registration of an FIR in Neemrana. “The witnesses, who were going to the court in Behror for deposing during the trial, went straight to the Alwar SP and informed about the incident. The police acted promptly to give them security,” he said.
Mr. Singh said action had already been initiated for cancellation of bail of Vinit Yadav, mentioned as the first accused in the chargesheet filed in the lynching case. The Superintendent of Police, Alwar, had made a request to the District and Sessions Judge to order a day-to-day trial.
Pehlu Khan, 55, and his sons were transporting cows from a cattle fair in Jaipur to their hometown in Haryana, when they were waylaid near Behror by a mob of self-styled cow vigilantes and beaten up on April 1, 2017. Pehlu Khan died of injuries after two days.
The Neemrana Circle Officer has also asked the witnesses to share the route, vehicle, date and time of their arrival whenever they come to attend court proceedings to provide them security. The trial is in progress in the court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Behror. Mr. Hayat said an application would be filed seeking shifting of trial to the Alwar district headquarters.
