By M M News
New Delhi A local court in Latehar district, Jharkhand on Wednesday held eight men guilty of lynching two Muslim cattle herders to death in March 2016. The eight men, out of which five were arrested and three surrendered earlier but were released on bail later, were sent to jail by first class judicial magistrate until the quantum of punishment is pronounced later this week.
Earlier in March 2016, Mazlum Ansari (32) and Imteyaz Khan (13) were beaten to a pulp by a frenzied mob and then hanged from a tree in Latehar. Five of the eight accused – Mithilesh Prasad Sahu, Pramod Kumar Sahu, Manoj Kumar Sahu, Awadhesh Sahu, Manoj Sahu, Arun Sao, Vishal Tiwary, and Shahdev Soni – were arrested by the police within 24 hours of the crime while the remaining three surrendered to a local court. All of them were released on a bail later.
According to the deceased families, both Ansari and Khan were taking their cattle for sale to a nearby village fair but were stopped by a group of men on the way. It was there that they were brutally thrashed by the group and hung from a tree for all to see.
The Latehar mob lynching triggered a series of violent hate crimes across the state where several Muslim cattle traders fell prey to cow vigilantism. After much protests across the country, the Supreme Court intervened and urged the Central government to enact separate laws to prevent such mob violence.