Cow vigilantes mercilessly thrashed three persons, including a woman, and forced them to shout "Jai Shree Ram", on suspicion they were carrying beef in Madhya Pradesh's Seoni on Friday.
The two men were forced to stand against a tree and beaten with thick wooden sticks. One of the men was then forced to hit his wife repeatedly with a slipper and shout "Jai Shree Ram", as video footage of the incident that has gone viral shows.
Police said they have arrested five men for thrashing the victims.
The police named Ram Sena leader Shubham Baghel as one of the accused.
"We came to know that Shubham Baghel had stopped one woman and two men yesterday. Baghel along with his four to five friends had beaten up the men. A video of the incident has gone viral on social media. We have registered a case against all the accused and five people have been arrested. They all will be sent to judicial remand soon," GS Uikey, the local police official said, ANI reported.
The matter is being investigated.
The official also told ANI that Baghel had earlier been booked for his involvement in similar cases.
The thrashing comes two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP won a resounding victory in the Lok Sabha polls, to take the reins for a second successive term.
Similar incidents of cow vigilantes thrashing people, mainly from the minority community, on suspicion of carrying beef had triggered controversy and invited criticism during the past five years.
National Conference leader, tagging a video of the incident, commented on twitter that "this is just the beginning".
(With ANI inputs)
