In another case of hate crime a 24-year-old Muslim man Tabrez Ansari was beaten to death. He was attacked by a mob in Jhankhand’s Kharsawan district and beaten up on the suspicion of theft on June 18, died in a local hospital on June 22. The incident took place in Dhatkidih, roughly 10 kilometres from where he lived.
A number of videos of the incident have gone viral on social media. In one of the videos, a man was seen hitting Tabrez with a wooden stick as the latter begs him to let him go. Another video showed Tabrez being forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Hanuman’.
“Tabrez was handed over to the police after being beaten up and was in judicial custody since June 18. On the morning of 22 June, his condition worsened, and he was taken to the hospital where he died. While many people were involved in the mob that beat up Tabrez, the primary accused — one Pappu Mandal — was arrested after his death,” Kharsawan SP Chandan Kumar Sinha told HuffPost India.
Tabrez worked as a labourer and welder in Pune. A month ago, he had come to his village to get married and also to celebrate Eid with his wife and family.
According to Aurungzeb Ansari, a Jharkhand-based activist, Tabrez had on June 18 left for Jamshedpur with two other men from his neighbourhood.
Tabrez is, however, heard in the video, denying the charges and saying he was asked to stand downstairs and the two men went inside a building. “I did not know anything,” he said.
https://twitter.com/imMAK02/status/1142679117579472896
He was beaten up on the night of 18 June, Mob has handed over him to the police, Police took him on custody but NO ACTION against Mob, He died yesterday.
This is how Muslims are being treated in Hindu Rashtra 2.0
3/n pic.twitter.com/gVu7HVI5ig
— Md Asif Khan (@imMAK02) June 23, 2019
Towards the end of the video, a man asked people to step back, asked Tabrez to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. “Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram, Jai Hanuman,” Tabrez was seen chanting. An FIR has been lodged in the incident on June 22.
Jharkhand has witnessed a number of lynching cases in the past few years. In 2016, a Muslim cattle trader and a 12-year-old boy accompanying him were beaten up and killed by a mob and their bodies hung from a tree in Latehar district. Eight men were sentenced to life for the killings.