“Chand called me at around 2 am and told me that they were being attacked by a mob when his phone got disconnected," Shoaib, cousin of Saddam and Chand Miyan, said a day after a case of alleged lynching over suspicion of cow smuggling came to light in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur district.
Chand Miyan, 23, was one of the two men who was killed, along with 35-year-old Guddu Khan. Saddam Qureshi, 23, suffered critical injuries in the alleged attack.
"Around an hour later, Saddam called my friend Mohsin, and he was heard crying for help and begging for water. He called and probably put the phone in his pocket before it got disconnected,” Shoaib claimed.
On the intervening night of 6-7 June, Chand Miyan was found dead under a 30-foot-high bridge in the Arang area of Raipur after the three men and their truck were allegedly chased down by unknown assailants over a suspicion of cow smuggling.
Guddu and Saddam were admitted to a hospital in Mahasamund. Guddu succumbed to his injuries while Saddam is currently undergoing treatment in a private hospital in Raipur.
“We are unable to move. Someone please come and save us,” the victims were heard saying over the phone to their relatives, according to the FIR (a copy of which is with The Quint) filed in the assault.
The FIR has been lodged against unknown people under sections 307 (punishment for attempt to murder) and 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
‘Victims Were Being Followed’: What The Police Investigation Says So Far
Chand and Saddam were cousins from Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, and Guddu was a resident of Shamli district.
The trio had loaded the bovines from a village in the neighbouring Mahasamund district in Chhattisgarh. They were headed for the cattle market in Odisha.
According to the FIR lodged at Arang police station, the police, after they were alerted about the incident, reached the spot and recovered the body of Chand Miyan lying below a 30-foot-high bridge on the Mahanadi River. They also found Guddu and Saddam critically injured.
“After conducting Panchnama proceedings in the case, it was found that the victims were chased down by unknown people, who stopped them on the bridge over the Mahanadi River and inflicted a lethal attack which killed them,” read the FIR.
Talking to The Quint, Kirtan Rathore, Additional Superintendent of Police, Raipur, said: “So far, we have been able to ascertain that the trio was travelling with a truck loaded with bovines and that they were being followed. We have on CCTV men following the truck but since there is no CCTV on the bridge, we have no confirmation whether they were lynched, or they jumped out of fear.”
Meanwhile, police sources claimed to this reporter that it was a "planned incident" as the road was laden with nails intended to waylay the trio.
“We are investigating the angle of a planned attack because a large number of sharp nails were confiscated from the incident site, and it’s because of these nails that the tyres of the truck burst, and the vehicle was forced to stop, making way for the assailants to take charge,” said a police source.
ASP Rathore, too, confirmed that a large number of sharp nails were recovered from the road near the incident site.
A special team has been formed under the leadership of Rathore and Senior Superintendent of Police, Santosh Singh, for detailed investigation, identification, and arrest of the accused, The Quint has learnt.
Family Alleges Lynching, Claims Victims Called During the Incident
Talking to reporters in Raipur, Shoaib, the cousin of Saddam and Chand Miyan, further claimed that the call from Saddam to his friend Mohsin lasted for around 47 minutes, adding that later on, police personnel picked up the call and informed them about the deaths of the two.
The police are awaiting the post-mortem report to confirm the cause of deaths in the matter.
When asked about the injuries visible on the dead bodies and the survivor Saddam’s body, the police said: “We can’t confirm the nature and cause of the injuries and of the death. Since all three were found below a 30-foot-high bridge, we can’t comment on the injuries. We are waiting for the post-mortem report by the doctors.”
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