The Haryana Police on Wednesday, 27 April, filed a First Information Report (FIR) against three-to-four unidentified persons after a video capturing purported gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes) showed them yanking a man by his legs and dragging him across the ground went viral on social media.
Two days after the FIR, members of the Bajrang Dal staged a protest against the police action in Haryana's Mahendragarh, saying that the "time had come to either kill or die," independent journalist Alishan Jafri reported.
The men in the video were armed with pistols and were seen forcing a man inside a Scorpio car.
After some other videos of cow vigilantism in the region emerged, SP Nuh Varun Singla indicated said that they had taken cognisance of the incidents, which were found to have occurred in the Ferozepur Jhirka jurisdiction.
Furthermore, a Special Investigation Team will be constituted to probe the incidents, The Indian Express reported. Speaking to the daily, an official denounced the assault and said:
"Such raids by individuals are banned. Initially, they were police informers who were just keeping a tab on people engaged in cow slaughter. Now, they have started misusing their role and tried to take the law into their own hands. However, no incident of assault happened in the presence of police even in the current cases."
What the FIR Says
The FIR filed on the basis of the complaint by ASI Ravikant stated that users on social media alleged that members of Gau Raksha Dal were involved in the incidents.
The complaint also mentions two other videos from Rawli and Basai Meo villages, where unidentified young men are seen taking a man away and two young men can be seen brutalising an old man in a vehicle, respectively.
(With inputs from The Indian Express.)
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