A Muslim man was beaten up by a group of locals on suspicion of theft in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, on the night of June 18, after which he died. Police have now registered an FIR against the victim for allegedly robbing and assaulting a woman.
Mob lynching in Aligarh (Photo credit: social media)
New Delhi– Eleven days after a Muslim man was beaten to death by a Hindu mob in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, his brother and five others have been charged with robbery and defamation of a woman.
Aurangzeb, alias Farid, 35, was said to have been killed by locals on the night of June 18, police said. They were attacked on suspicion of attempting to burglarize the home of a Hindu businessman.
On June 29, eleven days after his death, an FIR was registered against Aurangzeb and six other Muslim men under IPC sections 354 (assault with intent to outrage the modesty of a woman) and 395 (robbery).
The FIR was registered on the complaint of a woman named Lakshmi Rani Mittal who alleged that Aurangzeb and his accomplices had robbed her house on the day of the incident. They claimed that Aurangzeb sustained injuries after slipping on the stairs while trying to escape from the house after the robbery.
However, the details of the FIR registered in his complaint contradict the facts of the case which emerged from the viral video and the FIR filed by the victim’s family in the case.
Mittal’s claims
Mittal told The Wire that at around 10:15 p.m., a group of five to six people entered his home, climbing the stairs. One of them was armed with an illegal handgun in the country, and two others were armed with knives.
According to Mittal, “they robbed me of the gold necklace I was wearing at gunpoint. They threatened to shoot me if I tried to make any noise,” he said. He also said one of the defendants put his hand on his chest in an inappropriate manner.
Mittal claimed that the robbers forced him to hand over Rs 2.5 lakh in cash, along with some gold jewellery and silver kept in a cupboard.
He added that after hearing the noise outside, the four suspects ran away with the stolen goods, fearing arrest, while one thief slipped down the stairs while trying to escape and sustained injuries to his head, hands and feet.
‘Aurangzeb’ reveals his identity
Hearing the cries for help, some villagers caught the man and he revealed his name as Aurangzeb Mittal, said Mittal. According to Mittal’s FIR, Aurangzeb allegedly told the villagers about his accomplice who had fled.
Among the persons named in the FIR are Aurangzeb, Salman, Aurangzeb’s brother Muhammad Zaki, Akbar, Nawab, Shamim, Ashu Panwale’s boy and two others.
Explaining the delay in filing the FIR, Mittal said she could not reach the police station on the day of the incident due to the disturbance. In his FIR, he has further stated that the local police station did not register his complaint, following which he had to file a complaint with the SP, Aligarh.
Mittal added that after the villagers arrested Aurangzeb, his father-in-law dialed 112 after returning from the temple, after which the police reached the spot and took away the injured Aurangzeb.
Gandhi Park police station in-charge SP Singh confirmed to The Wire that no arrests have been made in the FIR filed by Mittal.
On June 18, on the complaint of Aurangzeb’s brother Muhammad Zaki, 10 persons (all Hindus) and 10-12 other unidentified persons were charged with murder, unlawful assembly, rioting with deadly weapons, wrongful restraint, crime committed with the same intent and an FIR was registered for torture.
In his FIR, Zaki said the assailants identified his brother as a Muslim. Four people have been arrested for the murder.
It is noteworthy that a video of Aurangzeb being surrounded and beaten with sticks and attacked with kicks and punches at a small intersection in Aligarh area has been widely shared on social media.
According to the FIR filed at Gandhi Park police station on Zaki’s complaint, Aurangzeb was returning from making rotis at around 10.15 pm on June 18 when Mamu approached his locals near a road in Bhanja area. There was an encounter. Zaki said in his complaint that after coming to know that he was a Muslim, “they attacked him with the intention to kill him”.
He called it a case of “mob lynching”. The accused in the Aurangzeb murder case have been identified as Ankit Warshne, Chirag Warshne, Sanjay Warshne, Rishabh Pathak, Anj Agarwal, Mono Pathak, Pandit Vijaygarhwala, Kamal Bansal, Dimpy Agarwal and Rahul Agarwal.
On the other hand, local BJP MLA Mukta Raja has supported the people arrested in the murder case, claiming that they are being framed. Since then, the incident has taken a communal and political turn.
It is noteworthy that on June 19, activists and businessmen of the Hindu community led by Raja protested against the police action against the murder suspects and demanded no further arrests.
As both communities took to the streets, communal tensions flared in the area, but there were no reports of violence.
Read here in English click –
