JHARKHAND: A court in India has given 10-year jail terms to 10 men for beating a Muslim man to death four years ago.
Tabrez Ansari, 24, died days after being attacked by people who accused him of stealing a motorcycle in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
A video showing Ansari being forced to say chants praising Hindu gods while pleading for his life had gone viral and led to a huge outrage in India. His family alleged that police denied him treatment despite his injuries.
The state police denied any wrongdoing.
The video footage from the night of 19 June 2019 showed a terrified Ansari tied to an electricity pole and being assaulted by the mob, with blood and tears streaming down his face.
His attackers forced him to repeatedly chant “Jai Shri Ram”, which translates from Hindi to “hail Lord Ram” or “victory to Lord Ram“.
Ansari did as told, but the mob kept assaulting him through the night. He was handed over to police the next day who then arrested him for theft. His family had alleged that they were not allowed to see him.
On 22 June, Ansari complained of nausea, vomiting and chest pain and was transferred to a hospital but he died from injuries sustained during the attack.
Last week, trial court Judge Amit Shekhar convicted the 10 men “guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder”.
The police had been criticised initially for not invoking the more stringent murder charge. Later on they did invoke murder charges against all the accused in a supplementary charge sheet.
However, the judge said there was not enough evidence to convict the accused of murder.
Ansari’s lynching by a Hindu mob was not an isolated incident – there have been several similar incidents reported in India in recent years where Muslims have been attacked by so-called “cow vigilantes” over rumours that they had eaten beef, or that they were trying to smuggle cows – an animal many Hindus consider holy – for slaughter. Cow slaughter is illegal in many Indian states.
The attacks on the minority community have been condemned by opposition politicians. Senior Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi had described Ansari’s lynching as a “blot on humanity”.
Critics say anti-Muslim violence has risen since 2014 under the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They say the prime minister has not condemned such attacks quickly or strongly enough.
The government denies this and points out that days after Ansari’s killing, Mr Modi said he was “pained” by the assault.
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