The murder took place in the town of Dadri in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where a rumor circulated that Mohammad Akhlaq and his family were slaughtering cows and storing and consuming beef.
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Akhlaq’s 22-year-old son was also seriously injured in the attack and was in intensive care at a nearby hospital. “They dragged my brother and father outside the room and used bricks which they found under his bed to beat them”, Sajida told the Indian Express.
The mob then dragged him and his son from their home and beat them with sticks and bricks.
The men attacked after an earlier – larger – group had gathered outside the home, accusing the family of secretly eating beef.
In a shocking revelation in the murder over a meal in Dadri, forensic lab tests suggest that the meat stored in Mohammad Akhlaq’s house was mutton, and not beef.
However, the police are still investigating the matter and are yet to find out who started the rumours.
Tension broke out around the area following the arrests of the men involved in the attack and the residents clashed with police to protest over it.
“They also tried to molest me and hit my grandmother on her face”, she added. The Muslim family lives in the state of Uttar Pradesh, near the country’s capital, where the law prohibits the slaughter of cows. One 20-year-old man was reportedly injured, the paper said, without elaborating.
Gautam Budh Nagar District Magistrate N P Singh said police had been deployed in the area and the situation was under control.
Killing cows is illegal in the northern state – which borders Delhi – because the animal is considered sacred in Hinduism.
“There has been a bit of rallying around this discourse of how Muslims and Christians kills cows, and it’s an emotive issue because pious Hindus do worship them”, says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. They claimed that the rumor was part of a conspiracy and said their house is too small to slaughter a cow.
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Nawab Singh said, “The incident is truly unfortunate but, if the allegation that the accused ate beef is true, the family simply brought what happened to it upon itself”.
