A 68-year-old Muslim man was allegedly beaten up by a mob and forced to eat pork for selling beef in a market area in Assam's Biswanath district.
Guwahati: In a shocking incident, which brought back memories of the Dadri mob lynching of 2015, a 68-year-old Muslim man was allegedly beaten up by a mob and forced to eat pork for selling beef in a market area in Assam's Biswanath district. The incident took place on April 7.
According to reports, the victim Shaukat Ali had been selling beef at the weekly market for the past two years. He was thrashed by a mob and questioned whether he had any licence to sell the beef.
The mob continued asking him about his nationality — "Are you a Bangladeshi? Do you have your name in the NRC (National Register of Citizens)?"
Ali suffered some serious injuries as a result of the attack. Meanwhile, the Assam Police registered a case and detained five people after a few videos of the incident went viral on social media.
A top official of the Assam Police said that an FIR has been registered at the Biswanath police station with case number 80/2019 under sections 143, 341, 325, 294(A), 295(A), 153(A) and (B) and 384 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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Five people have been detained and one person arrested last night for their alleged involvement in the incident, confirmed Rakesh Roshan, Superintendent of police, Biswanath district said.
The incident took place in the Tezpur Lok Sabha constituency where polling will take place on April 11. Polling for the other four Lok Sabha seats of Assam will be also be held on the same day.
In a similar incident in 2015, Mohammed Akhlaq was fatally assaulted in Bisada village near Dadri in Uttar Pradesh on the suspicion of slaughtering a cow. The incident created national outrage at that time.
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