516 People Donate Rs 3 Lakh to Wife of Afrazul’s Killer

Shambhulal Regar, who hacked and burnt a Muslim labourer to death, was arrested by the police on 7 December.

A few weeks after the video of a Muslim man being hacked to death in Rajasthan made the news, Indian Express reported that about Rs 3 lakh was “collected in the name” of the killer Shambhulal Regar, with the police officers adding that the donation came from about 516 people hailing from different states across the country.

The report adds that the police were only recently informed of a message going around on social media which contained the details of a bank account operated in the name of Regar’s wife, accompanied by an appeal seeking donations for the family.

Who’s Transferring the Money?

We have frozen the bank account in which money was being collected in the name of Regar. Around Rs 3 lakh was deposited before the account was frozen… We will investigate those who deposited the money to check for any links with the accused.

Anand Shrivastava, IG, Udaipur Range to The Indian Express

Adding that most of the money-transfers took place through internet-banking, the police also told the Indian Express that they couldn’t find a single state from where people had not sent across money to the account.

The report added that the police had arrested two businessmen, Prakash Singh and Dinesh Singh, under Section 151 of the CrPC (preventive custody), for circulating pictures of the receipts of money they have transferred to Shambulal’s wife’s account.

This comes a few days after the Rajasthan Police charged Shambhulal with “disrupting religious harmony and criminal conspiracy”, along with the existing charges of murder and destruction of evidence that had already been levied against him, according to a report in Scroll.

Shambhulal had defended his actions by saying that he had only hacked Mohammad Afrazul, a Muslim labourer from West Bengal, to death so he could protect a Hindu woman from the clutches of ‘love-jihad’. The Rajasthan Police, however, had refuted this, reported Scroll.

Shambhulal’s 14-year-old nephew, who he had convinced to video record the entire hacking, has also been booked for criminal conspiracy and charges under the Information Technology Act, reported Scroll.

Mobile Internet Services Suspended

Meanwhile, as reported by PTI, Section 144 which includes suspension of all mobile internet services, including 2G, 3G and 4G services, has been imposed for 24 hours in Udaipur as a ‘precautionary measure’ against emerging communal conflicts after Shambhulal hacked Afrazul to death.

The PTI report says that the order was issued by Bhawani Singh Detha, Divisional Commissioner, Udaipur, who suspended the mobile internet services last night. Meanwhile, Collector Vishnu Charan issued the prohibitory orders, which are to be in effect until further orders.

The decision was taken by the authorities when news reached them of a visit planned by a fringe Hindutva leader to speak to several people about the incident involving Afrazul’s death at the hands of Shambhulal, who had cited communal reasons behind the same, the report adds.

(With inputs from Indian Express and Scroll)