UP: Dead buffalo spurs mob attack

Lucknow: Four men transporting a dead buffalo were attacked by a mob in Hathras district on Wednesday morning. The men, accused of stealing the buffalo, were saved from the mob by policemen who persuaded the crowd to allow law to take its own course.

According to villagers, they caught the men taking away the dead buffalo in a pick-up van. They claimed that the buffalo had been poisoned by the men. The men, two Hindus and two Muslims, were beaten, dragged and abused. A mobile video shot by a villager and circulated online shows the assault in which the men are on the ground.

One of the men is seen pleading with the villagers and is heard saying that he is not a cattle thief and that he had gone to the village to pick up a dead buffalo on the instructions of a contractor he works for.

The man says he was asked to take the buffalo to a designated spot given to him by the contractor. The crowd refused to believe him.

Another mobile video in circulation shows a police officer asking the angry villagers to let the police take the men into their custody. The officer stays calm as villagers shout at him. At one point, he even asks for the mobile recording to be stopped.

The four men were later taken away by the cops who have now summoned the contractor and the buffalo owner.

Senior police officer Siddhartha Verma said that the four men said that they had the license to pick up animal carcass and dispose it.  “We are getting things checked,” he said.

Meanwhile chief minister Yogi Adityanath, in an interview to a new channel, accused the Congress of ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’ regarding incidents of mob lynching.