New Delhi : Eleven days after a Muslim man was lynched by a group of Hindu men in Aligarh city of Uttar Pradesh, a first information report was lodged against the deceased victim, his brother and five others on the charges of dacoity and assaulting a woman to outrage her modesty.
On 29 June, an FIR was lodged against Fareed and six other Muslim men under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 395 (dacoity) of the Indian Penal Code.
The FIR was lodged on the complaint of Laxmi Rani Mittal, who alleged that Fareed and his companions committed dacoity in her house on the day of the incident. She claimed that Fareed suffered injuries after slipping on a staircase while trying to hurriedly escape the house after the loot.
DSP Rakesh Sisodia said to reporters, “On basis of the complaint, an FIR was filed against seven persons, including Fareed, who died purportedly after being beaten by a mob, and two unknown persons. The matter is being investigated.”
Mod Fareed, beaten to death by a mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh on 18 June, was targeted because he was Muslim, amounting to hate crime and mob lynching, according to a fact-finding report by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and the All India Central Council of Trade Unions.
The report released on 29 June, says Mohd Fareed was returning home after finishing his day’s work, and he was confronted by a gang of locals near a by-lane in the Mamu Bhanja area on 18 June. He was first identified as a Muslim and attacked with the intention to kill, says the report.
After being brought to Malkhan Singh Hospital with injuries, Fareed died while receiving treatment. Fareed suffered 22 injuries from beatings with a baton, three broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a cracked skull before dying from profuse bleeding, according to the post-mortem report.
“On the night of 18th June, a 138-second video emerged showing about 15 individuals, some armed with lathis, cornering and bashing a man. The victim is shown pleading with the mob to spare him. In another 109-second video, the same crowd is asking the victim to identify his associates who were supposedly doing a ‘recce’ in the neighbourhood. Someone in the mob shouts, ‘Break his knees.’ It was through these videos that Fareed’s siblings found out that their brother was being attacked by a mob,” read the fact-finding report.
After the incident, the local BJP officials have been loud in their support of the accused. No BJP MLA has paid them a visit or gotten in touch with them about the tragedy, according to Fareed’s family.
One of the locals from Mamu-Bhanja told the fact-finding team that “BJP is trying to manufacture tension. After the incident, there was of course some tension between the Hindus and Muslims here, but it was all verbal. They are spreading rumours of stone- pelting, etc. They want to project that we create problems when it is them who creates the problem. No one should be killed so ruthlessly.”
Fareed’s elder brother claims that the inquiry was purposefully delayed and ignored in order to protect the accused.
“Yogi’s bulldozers are just for us. They killed him because he was a Muslim man and they found him alone. He was killed in a mob lynching so brutally. Different politicians are coming here to meet us but will my brother get any justice? There are numerous CCTVs in the shops nearby. Show us a clip of him entering the house. The police can get the clips easily and see what is the truth. Why such delay? They know it’s a clear cut case,” he told the team.
Quoting Indian Express the report says, Bajrang Dal activists in the vicinity had attempted to escalate tensions close to the scene of the crime. “Though I do not justify mob lynching, those trying to protect a thief should remember clearly that UP is still ruled by Yogi Adityanath, whose government has zero tolerance for crime. Do not forget that bulldozers had razed properties of such elements and these (bulldozers) will roar again on streets to teach criminals a lesson,” said Gaurav Sharma, convenor of the local unit of Bajrang Dal.
Bajrang Dal activists in the vicinity had attempted to escalate tensions close to the scene of the crime, the report alleges.
“In all known instances of communal violence, the network of RSS-BJP-VHP has played an active role not only in manufacturing instances of violence, but also in controlling narrative that portrays the Muslim victim of violence as the perpetrator,” says the report.
The report then notes “the BJP MLAs have clearly played a role in sharpening this narrative and are constantly defending the accused men. The police machinery is creating pressure on the local Muslim community. The pattern of the placement of the forces suggests an attempt to set a specific overtone: to project the Muslim community as troublemaker.”