Deepening the nation’s anxiety over mob lynching incidents, a 28-year-old man, Akbar Khan was beaten to death by villagers in Alwar on Friday night on suspicion of cow smuggling. Anwar, who was accompanying the victim, managed to escape.

Villagers in Ramgarh intercepted them while they were transporting the cows on foot. 

Ramgarh police station sub-inspector Subhash Chand said, “They were taking two cows on foot sometime between midnight and 1 am when the villagers stopped them. They tried to run away but the mob chased them and caught them. While Akbar was assaulted, Aslam managed to escape.” 

Anil Beniwal, a senior police officer in Alwar, said, “It is not clear if they were cow smugglers. The body has been sent for post-mortem, we are trying to identify the culprits.” 

Four have been arrested in the case so far.

Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje condemned the incident on Twitter and assured strict action against the perpetrators.

Earlier this week, Kerala witnessed such a horrific incident. 

On July 17, the police arrested two people in Kollam district of Kerala for attacking a Bengali migrant labourer after accusing him of stealing a hen. The victim, 50-year-old Manik Roy, later died of head injuries. 

According to reports, Roy and his relative were returning home after buying a hen when they were stopped by 23-year-old Asif and 60-year-old Sasidhara Kurup. 

Kurup and Asif accused Roy and his relative of stealing the hen, which the two kept on denying. They were then beaten up severely.

Roy, who sustained injuries on the face and head, died later.

Union Minister of State Arjun Ram Meghwal has said that such incidents emerge in the run-up to every election. He said that the most ghastly incidents of mob-lynching happened during the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. When asked why he was not commenting on the incident in Panchkula, the Union minister said that lynching under suspicion of cow smuggling cannot be justified either. He said that the BJP governments at the Centre and Haryana are working out a mechanism to pre-empt further incidents of the kind.