Civil rights groups here on Thursday expressed outrage over the closure of investigation against six persons named in the first information report filed in the case of lynching of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan allegedly by a mob of cow vigilantes near Behror in Alwar district of Rajasthan on April 1 this year.
The case against six persons was registered on the basis of Pehlu Khan's dying declaration at a private hospital in Behror. The CID-CB of the State police has reportedly cleared the accused of all charges while arriving at a conclusion that they were not present on the spot when the offence was committed.
Pehlu Khan (55) and his two sons were transporting cows after purchasing them in a cattle fair in Jaipur, to their hometown Nuh in Haryana. They were waylaid on the Jaipur-Delhi national highway by a mob of self-styled cow vigilantes and beaten up. Pehlu Khan succumbed to his injuries after two days.
The CID-CB has concluded on the basis of the mobile phones' call data records and the statements of employees of a gaushala, situated 4 km away from the crime scene, that no case was made out against the six accused. Police have since arrested half-a-dozen other persons on the basis of video footage of the incident, bust most of them have been released on bail.
The accused named in the FIR are Om Yadav, Hukum Chand Yadav, Sudhir Yadav, Jagmal Yadav, Naveen Sharma and Rahul Saini.
The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which spearheaded a campaign for getting justice to the victims in the case, said the police were protecting the accused — all of whom were office-bearers of right-wing Hindutva groups — morning on way to Jaipur. Some right-wing groups have threatened that they would not allow the activists to enter the town and stop the march on the highwayunder pressure of the BJP government. “The CID-CB is under direct control of the Home Minister. Its blatant bias is very obvious,” PUCL president Kavita Srivastava told The Hindu.
Mr. Srivastava said the rights groups along with Pehlu Khan's sons, who were also complainants in the police case, would challenge the CID-CB's closure of investigation in the court. “The court will not allow closure without issuing notice to the complainants. We will expose the illegality of police action in the court.”
The rights groups are also worried about safety of the participants in a “Karwan-e-Mohabbat” of Aman Biradari, which will be passing through Behror on Friday morni on way to Jaipur. Some right-wing groups have threatened that they would not allow the activists to enter the town and stop the march on the highway.