3 men were thrashed to death by the locals of Baniyapur village of the Saran district in Bihar suspecting that they were cow thieves. According to the police, the incident happened on Friday morning at around 4:30 am when 4 men with a pickup van allegedly carrying cattle were discovered by the villagers. The villagers nabbed the men and flogged them mercilessly until they collapsed.
The police took the three men to a nearby hospital in Chhapra where the doctors declared that 2 of the 4 were “brought dead”. The third one who was critically injured by public flogging to sustained his injuries and breathed his last while undergoing treatment at the hospital. The fourth one is seriously injured and is currently being treated at Baniyapur Health Centre. The deceased are identified as Naushad Quereshi, Raju Nutt and Veeresh Nutt.
According to the locals, these four men entered the village in their pickup van at around 1 am in the dead of the night. The alleged smugglers apparently first stole 4 goats owned by the villager named Budhu Ram and then proceeded to steal a buffalo chained nearby. However, the noise caught some villagers’ attention and they learned that their cattle are being stolen by a group of cattle smugglers. In the ensuing commotion, a large number of villagers chased down the alleged cattle smugglers who were desperately trying to escape from the village. They were eventually caught and scores of lathis and rods were rained upon them.
A police case has been filed by the villagers against the alleged cattle smugglers. Inconsolable family members of the alleged cattle smugglers have also filed an FIR against the villagers. The bodies of the deceased have been sent to postmortem.
The police said that the three alleged cow smugglers were beaten to death by the villagers in the fit of rage. The police have claimed there was a wave of seething anger amongst the locals due to similar incidents of cattle smuggling in the recent past. An investigation has been launched into the incident and the police are determining if the three alleged cattle smugglers were involved in other thefts as well and if they had a criminal record.
