NEW DELHI: A 20 year old Muslim youth died after being beaten for hours by villagers in Jharkhand’s Gumla district. His crime: he was in love with a Hindu girl.
Mohammad Shalik, was a resident of Raza colony in Gumla town, and was beaten mercilessly for having a relationship with a Hindu girl from a neighbouring village Soso.
The police told local reporters that the girl had asked the youth to meet her at Gumla for the Ram Navami procession. He first refused, and then went to meet her and dropped her home. He was driver a scooter. Neighbours saw, tried him to a tree, and beat him mercilessly for hours. He succumbed to his injuries.
Police claimed to have arrested three persons, and lodged an FIR against unnamed people. The Gumla Superintendent of Police Chandan Kumar Jha told reporters, “Though investigation is on, we were told by the villagers that the boy had been asked earlier not to meet the girl and never visit the village.”
This comes on the heels of the attack on Mewat residents by cow vigilantes on the main Jaipur_Delhi highway, with at least five persons being beaten unconscious. One Pehlu Khan succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
Gowda town is tense after Shalik’s murder with huge deployment of police. The youth’s father Mohammad Minhak said that two persons came to his house on Wednesday to tell him that his son had been beaten, and was tied in Soso village. “I informed police immediately. When we reached at the village, we found my son was critically injured,” he said. He was taken to Sadar hospital, referred to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi but died on the way.