Alwaght- Indian police have arrested ringleader of a mob who tortured a Muslim man for 12 hours and captured it on a video that has gone viral since his death shortly afterwards.
“We have arrested the main accused for the murder, but a dozen people from the mob are on the run,” Kartik S., the Seraikela police chief, told AFP on Monday.
The Muslim man, Tabrez Ansari, died in hospital on Saturday, four days after a group of men tied him to a pole and beat and punched him over allegations that he carried out a burglary in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
In a 10-minute video, Ansari was also forced by the mob to shout “Jai Shri Ram,” a slogan widely used by Hindu hardliners that means “Hail Lord Ram.”
Kartik confirmed that the footage showed the 24-year-old being forced to shout the Hindu slogans.
The incident was the latest suspected case of religious violence against Muslims in India.
Human Rights Watch and activist groups have expressed concern about rising brutal attacks in the country by self-appointed “cow protectors” against Muslims and lower castes over rumors that they trade or kill cows for beef.
The selling of beef is banned in several Indian states, and its consumption is now permitted in only eight of the country’s 29 states and territories.
Many Hindus regard the cow as sacred, but India’s Muslim minority engages in the trade of cattle for slaughter and consumption, chiefly of buffalo meat, as well as dairy purposes.
Cow vigilantism by Hindu groups has surged in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014 even as most of the country’s 29 states have already banned the killing of cows for meat.
