Asia Pacific
NEW
DELHI — Amid a politically charged national debate over religious
intolerance, a Muslim man was beaten to death on Monday by a mob of
Hindus who suspected him of stealing a cow, a revered symbol in the
Hindu religion. It was the fourth time in six weeks that Hindus had
killed Muslims they suspected of slaughtering, stealing or smuggling
cows.
The
police found the bloodied and battered body of the man, Mohammad Hasmat
Ali, early Monday morning in the remote village of Uchekon Moiba
Thongkhong in Manipur, a state in northeast India.
Mr. Ali, 55, married with three sons, was a leader in the neighboring
village of Keirao Makting, where he was headmaster of a madrasa. Police
officials said Mr. Ali had no criminal record and no known links to the
cattle business.
“What
is happening here is completely wrong — people taking the law into
their hands,” Naba Kanta, the senior police official leading the
investigation into Mr. Ali’s death, said in an interview. “We face the
problem of mob justice in this area, and we are trying to do our best to
contain it.”
The
recent killings are occurring against a backdrop of intensifying
political conflict over laws and policies aimed at protecting cows from
slaughter and consumption. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., has pushed aggressively
to pass state beef bans. The Delhi police, controlled by Mr. Modi’s
government, recently descended in force on a canteen after it posted
beef on its menu. (It turned out to be buffalo meat.) On Wednesday, the
B.J.P. ran campaign ads accusing its opponents of “insulting the holy
cow.”
Several recent cases
of violence have involved Hindu nationalist vigilante groups dedicated
to protecting cows. The groups, including some with ties to the B.J.P.,
mobilize members to confront those suspected of slaughtering, eating or
stealing cows, sometimes with catastrophic results.
On Sept. 28, a Muslim family was attacked
in a village outside Delhi by a Hindu mob that suspected the family of
eating beef, an accusation the family denied. The father, Mohammed
Ikhlaq, was killed, and his son seriously wounded. Weeks later, another
Hindu mob in the Kashmir Valley in north India
threw a homemade bomb at a truck suspected of carrying beef; a young
Muslim trucker, most of his body burned, died days later. Then, on Oct.
14, a Muslim man was killed in the north Indian state of Himachal
Pradesh when he was attacked by a group of Hindu activists who suspected
him of smuggling cattle for slaughter.
These
and other recent outbreaks of violence by Hindu nationalists have
provoked a vigorous cultural and political backlash across India. Dozens
of leading authors returned India’s highest literary award in protest.
Hundreds of scientists, academics, actors and filmmakers have signed
petitions or spoken out. On Tuesday, Sonia Gandhi, the president of the
Congress Party and Mr. Modi’s longtime political opponent, led a march
in Delhi to condemn “the atmosphere of fear, intolerance and
intimidation in the country.”
Mr.
Modi’s party has struggled to formulate a response, at one point urging
party leaders to temper their remarks, at another point ridiculing the
spreading protests as a manufactured controversy. On Sunday, Mr. Modi’s
finance minister, Arun Jaitley, went even further, asserting in a
Facebook post that Mr. Modi was “the worst victim of ideological
intolerance” enforced by “Congress, left thinkers and activists.”
“Their
strategy is twofold,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “Firstly, obstruct Parliament
and do not permit reforms which will bring credit to Modi government.
Secondly, create, by structured and organized propaganda, an environment
that there is a social strife in India.”
The
events leading to Mr. Ali’s death are still being pieced together by
investigators. But according to Mr. Kanta, the police official, a Hindu
man known by a single name, Brajendra, heard dogs barking outside his
home early Monday morning.
“Brajendra
decided to go out and check,” Mr. Kanta said. “He found Mr. Ali huddled
in one corner of his barn, shivering. Brajendra assumed he had come to
steal his calf and raised an alarm. A crowd gathered and they started
beating Mr. Ali. In the pushing and pulling, and being beaten up, Mr.
Ali died.”
Mr.
Brajendra has been arrested, and police officials said he had
acknowledged his involvement in Mr. Ali’s death and helped identify
others in the mob.
In
the village of Keirao Makting, where Mr. Ali’s family lives, angry
villagers this week staged protests at the local police station, blocked
the main road to the city of Imphal and formed a citizens committee to
conduct an independent investigation. “How can a man whose family
consisted of engineers and doctors, and himself a respected headmaster,
steal a calf?” asked Mohammad Raza-ud-din, leader of the citizens
committee.
“He never picked a fight with anyone in the village,” Mr. Raza-ud-din said. “The children in the madrasa love the gentle Ali.”
A version of this article appears in print on November 5, 2015, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Indian Muslim, Accused of Stealing a Cow, Is Beaten to Death by a Hindu Mob .
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