Dairy farmer Pehlu Khan, who was allegedly lynched by a mob of cow vigilantes in Alwar district of Rajasthan earlier this month was not a smuggler as claimed by State Home Minister, Pehlu’s uncle Hussain Khan said here on Tuesday.
Taking part in a dharna outside the Rajasthan Assembly, Mr. Hussain Khan said people in his native village of Jaisinghpura, near Nuh in Haryana, were scared since the lynching.
Mr. Hussain Khan refuted Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria’s claim that three earlier cases of cow smuggling were pending against his nephew. A false case of 2003 had been closed long ago, but even that did not give the right to anyone to assault him, he said.
Civil rights activists attending the three-day dharna reiterated the demand for the immediate arrest of all the accused named in the first information report and action against police officers for dereliction of duty.
Kavita Krishnan of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, former National Advisory Council member Farah Naqvi, Gujarat-based activist Jignesh Mewani, Vandana Prasad of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan and CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim addressed the gathering.
