On Alwar lynching case, Rahul Gandhi's 'brutal New India' jab on PM Modi

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi today said hatred had replaced humanity in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "brutal" 'New India' and cited a media report which claimed that policemen in Alwar took three hours to take a dying victim of a lynch mob to a hospital as they took a tea-break enroute.

The 28-year-old victim was allegedly lynched in Rajasthan's Alwar district Friday night by a group of people who accused him of smuggling cows.

"Policemen in #Alwar took 3 hrs to get a dying Rakbar Khan, the victim of a lynch mob, to a hospital just 6 KM away. Why? They took a tea-break enroute," Gandhi said on Twitter.

"This is Modi's brutal 'New India' where humanity is replaced with hatred and people are crushed and left to die," he said.

Khan and his friend Aslam were taking two cows to their village in Haryana through a forested area near Lalawandi in Alwar district last week when five men attacked them. Three people have been arrested.

The media report cited by Gandhi claimed the policemen stopped for tea and took the cows to a shelter before taking Khan to the hospital. 

The Congress chief’s comment comes a day after BJP lawmaker Gyandev Ahuja claimed that Rakbar Khan died in police custody and not lynched by mob. 

Ahuja had accused police of beating Rakbar in the police station that led to his death. Ahuja’s claims have been substantiated by the eye witness who had called and informed the police about the incident.

Further police is also facing criticism for arresting the persons who had informed about the incident. The two had been called to the police station to register a case against the cow smugglers and taken into custody. Alwar SP has ordered an inquiry into these allegations.

What adds weight to these allegations is statement by Dr Hasan Ali Khan at Ramgarh CHC who said police brought him to the hospital at 4.00 am almost three hours after he was found. Distance between the two is around four kilometers. Ramgarh resident Naval Kishore Sharma, who called the police and also went with them to Lalwandi village has also gone on record to say that police first took Akbar to thana and they beat him. “I informed the police on basis of information by Dharmendra Yadav and Paramjeet Singh. I went with police and we found one man injured lying in the mud and Dharmendra and Paramjeet were there as I told them. We bathed the injured man and asked him about what happened. Police placed him in the jeep and took him to the thana,” said Sharma. “Dharmendra and Paramjeet took the cows to cow shelter. Dharmendra even brought dry clothes for Akbar who was alive. One of the constables was beating him. We went home and when we returned two hours later Akbar was lying dead near a cell,” added Sharma.

The horrific incident comes despite staunch warning by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh when he said in the Lok Sabha that such incidents won’t be tolerated. 

Singh had said that it was the states’ responsibility to prevent such incident.

Fake news and rumour mongering was leading to lynchings, Singh said in the Lok Sabha. He also said that the social media sites have been asked to regulate fake news.

In protest against Singh’s statement, the Opposition staged a walkout expressing dissatisfaction with Union Minister’s statement on incidents of mob violence. 

The Union Minister’s statement coincided the Supreme Court’s observation where the top court urged Parliament to consider enacting a new law to deal with lynching and cow vigilantism stating that "horrendous acts of mobocracy" cannot be allowed to overrun the law of the land. 

(With agency inputs)