As many as four people were lynched in Bihar and Jharkhand in three separate incidents on Thursday, according to reports.
Just hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned killing of people in the name of "Gau bhakti" on Thursday, a meat trader, identified as Alimuddin Ansari, succumbed to his injuries after he was assaulted by at least 10 people who stopped his van allegedly carrying “cattle meat” in Ramgarh district near Ranchi. The police said the victim was from the Giddi area in Ramgarh.
In another incident from Jharkhand, a man accused of raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl, was allegedly lynched by mob in Dumka's Ramgarh. The incident took place on Thursday when a man raped and then murdered the girl, who hailed from Kusumdih, came to Ramgarh to attend a wedding at her uncle's place. According to reports, the 30-year old man identified, as Mithun Hansada, abducted the victim while she was playing at the bank of a river in the village and took her in the forest where she was raped and later killed.
In Bihar’s Basdiha village under Rohtas district, two siblings were beaten to death by around 20 people late on Wednesday night.
The two men were brothers and mahadalits - Musahars, who are classified as the most depressed among the dalits and so poor that they were traditionally known to subsist on a diet of mice which they used to hunt for a living.
The dead men identified as Baban Musahar, 40, and Murahu Musahar, 35, were accused of entering a house after burrowing through a wall to conduct theft, the police said.
According to an IndiaSpend content analysis of the English media, Muslims were the target of 51% of violence centred on bovine issues over nearly eight years (2010 to 2017) and comprised 86% of 28 Indians killed in 63 incidents.
As many of 97% of these attacks were reported after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power in May 2014, and about half the cow-related violence – 32 of 63 cases – were from states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party when the attacks were reported, revealed their analysis of violence recorded until June 25, 2017.
