By Abimbola Ogunnaike
Three men are currently in police cell in eastern Bihar State, India in connection with the death of a Muslim man, who was brutally assaulted on suspicion of carrying beef.
Head of Rasulpur Police Station in Bihar, Ramchandra Tiwari, confirmed the arrest of the suspects during an announcement on Saturday, 11 March, 2023 where the crime took place.
The victim, identified as 56-year-old Naseem Qureshi, died earlier this week after being attacked by a Hindu-radical mob for being suspected of carrying beef.
According to a police statement in court, Qureshi was allegedly surrounded by more than 20 people and attacked.
Police forces intervened but he died on the way to the hospital, the statement added.
Cows are sacred in Hinduism and the slaughter of them, along with the sale, consumption, or even possession of beef is restricted in some parts of the country.
There have been frequent attacks on those accused of killing them for meat or leather, predominantly people from the minority Muslim population.
Hardline Hindu groups have been demanding a complete ban on cow slaughter across India.
Over the years, Indian Muslims have often been targeted for everything from their food and clothing style to inter-religious marriages.
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, violence has increased against India’s Muslim minority by Hindu nationalists who have been emboldened by Modi’s silence on such attacks.
Opposition parties in India accuse the Hindu nationalist BJP government at federal and state levels of discriminating against religious minorities, especially Muslims. The trend has assumed alarming proportions since Modi’s election.
International rights groups have also accused Modi’s governing party of looking the other way and sometimes enabling hate speech against Muslims, who comprise 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people but are still numerous enough to be the second-largest Muslim population of any nation.
Source: Press TV
