Agencies
NEW DELHI: Akbar Khan, who was beaten up by a mob on suspicion of being a cow smuggler in Lalawandi village in Alwar, died due to shock, his postmortem report has revealed. The report also said that he had fractures in at least one hand, one leg and ribs. Also, he had injury marks on at least twelve body parts and went into shock due to the excessive beating.
Sources had earlier said that 28-year-old Akbar Khan died because of delay by police in taking him to a hospital. The police personnel allegedly took the cows to a shelter at a distance of 10 km first before taking Akbar to the hospital. Akbar was declared brought dead at the hospital.
The Rajasthan Police has admitted “error of judgement” in handling the case and suspended one and transferred three policemen. It has set up a high-level committee to probe the allegations of delay against the Alwar Police in taking Akbar to the hospital. However, it refuted allegations of “custodial death” and said that as per the primary investigation, the policemen have not been found involved in beating the victim.
“Since the policemen thought the victim was not serious, they decided to take him to the police station first so that the cows could be first shifted to a shelter. They also offered him water and tea, so it appeared an error of judgment,” Additional Director General (law and order) NRK Reddy, a member of the enquiry panel said.
Taking cognizance of the case, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought a report from the Rajasthan government. The MHA asked the Rajasthan government to provide details of the incident, the action taken to punish those involved in it and the steps that are being taken to restore peace. The state governemnt has been asked to provide the report as early as possible.
The incident was reported to police at 12.41 am on Saturday.Police reached there at 1.15 am, but they reached the hospital, which is nearly 4 km away from the scene of crime, with Khan at 4.00 am, where he was declared brought dead, as per police and hospital records.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
