Syed Khalique Ahmed | India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI—Incidents of mob lynching that had subsided for quite some time in UP have surfaced again. Two mob lynching incidents, one in Ghaziabad district of Western UP and another in Ambedkarnagar district of Eastern UP, have been reported in the last fortnight.
In Ghaziabad, a 14-year-old boy was mercilessly beaten up by Hindu youths when he went to a temple to drink water as he was thirsty.
The incident came to light after a video of the beating that was prepared by the accused went viral. The police have arrested chief accused Shringi Nandan Yadav, belonging to Bhagalpur district of Bihar.
The accused caught hold of the boy and then asked his friends to prepare a video. Yadav asked the name of the boy and that of his father. When the boy identified himself as Asif, son of Habib and said he had come to the temple, the accused started hitting him on his head. When the boy fell down, Yadav hit him in his stomach and buttock mercilessly.
According to police, the accused is an engineering graduate, was unemployed and staying in the temple for the last three months.
In another incident that took place on February 28, an 80-year-old identified as Abdul Qadir, who performed the job of muezzin in a mosque in Punthar village in Ambedkarnagar district of Eastern UP, was severely beaten up by a mob injured in nearby Kodra village. The old man succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in Lucknow on March 9.
According to an FIR filed by his son Imtiaz Ahmed, the muezzin, while on an evening walk, strayed into the Hindu-dominated village about five kilometres away from Punthar. As he was keeping beard and wearing skull cap, some youths of the village beat him mercilessly and threw him in the compound of a community centre in Kodra village, taking him as dead. However, someone happened to see the badly injured man and circulated a video on whatsapp groups of the local villagers which reached the victim’s son and relatives. The badly injured muezzin was first taken to Ambedkarnagar District Hospital for treatment from where he was referred to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Lucknow. However, he could not survive and breathed his last on March 9. Police have arrested three persons in this connection and sent to jail.
Ambedkarnagar-based social activist Qamar Ahmed said that it is good that police immediately acted and arrested the accused persons and sent them to jail. The incident, he said, has generated awe and terror among the local Muslims who fear to visit non-Muslim areas even for their genuine needs. “This has restricted movement of Muslims and in long term, it will affect their business and other activities”, he said.
