Cow protection group in Gurugram’s Sohna beat up duo for ‘smuggling’ cows
An FIR was registered against the duo, Lalit and Ranjeeth, at the Sohna City police station under the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act, 2015.
A group of locals stopped a pick-up truck for allegedly transporting two cows on Monday night and caught the driver and helper after a chase in Sohna, the police said on Tuesday. However, the family members of the two men caught told HT that the group assaulted the duo and tore the permission letter to ferry cows.
Arvind Kumar, station house officer(SHO), Sohna city police station, said that the driver of the truck and his accomplice allegedly left the vehicle and were trying to run away, when the group of at least six men stopped them. They sustained minor injuries as they both fell down while running, he said.
An FIR was registered against the duo, Lalit and Ranjeeth, at the Sohna City police station under the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act, 2015. The duo, both in their mid-twenties, did not have any documents required to transport the cows, the officer said.
Relatives of the accused, however, had a different version of the incident. They said that the duo had all the documents when they started off from Faridabad. Ranjeeth’s brother, Vinod Kumar, said, “Lalit told our advocate inside the police station that they were stopped and asked for money by the group and when they said they had all the required documents, they snatched and tore them up. Later, they got beaten up by the group.”
Vinod alleged that both Ranjeeth and Lalit’s faces had turned red due from the beating they had received. He claimed that when he reached the spot on Monday night, Lalit was limping. “I could easily make out that they had been beaten up by the group. When I asked them why he was limping, they said that I too would face violence if I stayed there,” Vinod said, adding that he left the spot soon after.
“The duo had taken permission and started off during the day time. If they did not have any papers, would they have travelled during the day?” asked Lalit’s brother Manoj Rathi, 28. He said that they had left Faridabad around 3.30pm on Monday. When he reached Sohna on Monday night, his brother and Ranjeeth was inside a room and there was a 25-strong group without any policemen.
When asked about why the group caught the alleged cow smugglers themselves instead of informing the police, the SHO said, “They were not sure about the information and that is why they went to catch the gang themselves.”
The SHO added that the people who caught the smugglers were part of a local ‘gau raksha’ group and that the accused were transporting the cattle from Faridabad to Nuh.
The complainant, Ashok Kumar, 40, told the police that around 6.30 pm on Monday he got information that cows were being smuggled in a pick-up truck in Sohna. He then informed his friends about it and they went to the main road and waited for the truck to arrive.
“When we signalled them to stop, they stopped the vehicle a little ahead of us and ran away. We chased and caught them.They fell down while running and suffered injuries,” Ashok told the police.
The group then questioned the duo and later informed the police and handed the duo over to them.
The accused were sent to a day’s police custody by a city court on Tuesday. No action has been taken against the group till Tuesday evening, the SHO said.