Two cattle transporters were killed while a third was injured after allegedly being attacked by a mob in Arang near Raipur in the early hours of Friday.
The three victims – Guddu Khan and Chand Miya Khan (both deceased) and Saddam Qureshi (injured) – are all residents of Uttar Pradesh. With Mr. Saddam injured and unable to provide a statement till late Friday evening, the sequence of events remained unclear according to the police. But the victims’ families said they had been attacked by a mob.
Shoaib, a common relative of Chand and Mr. Saddam, who lives in Raipur and had come to visit Mr. Saddam at the Raipur Hospital, said a mob had attacked the trio. He mentioned two calls – one that he received from Chand while another that his friend Mohsin received from Mr. Saddam – to suggest that they were assaulted for nearly two hours.
‘Pleading for help, water’
“Around 1.45 a.m., I received a call from Chand. It was a brief one where he said that he was being attacked by some people. He said that the tyre of their vehicle had gone flat. But before he could provide any further detail, the call was disconnected. I suspect the attackers must have snatched his phone. I tried calling back Chand but the calls went unanswered,” said Mr. Shoaib.
“In the second call with Mohsin that was received nearly an hour later, and lasted 57 minutes, Saddam could be heard saying that his limbs were broken. He was pleading with the attackers to spare him. I was with Mohsin when he received the call. It seemed Saddam had put the phone in his pocket but had not disconnected. We heard him continuously asking for water. The attackers were abusing them and asking them what they intended to do with the cattle in the vehicle,” Mr. Shoaib said.
A senior police officer said that the incident took place between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. when the three were heading towards Raipur from neighbouring Mahasamund district that touches Odisha on the other side.
“We received information on the police helpline that they were being chased by some people after which they were found lying below the Mahanadi bridge. After receiving information, our team rushed to the spot. While one of them died and was taken to a nearby health centre, the other two were rushed to a hospital in Mahasamund where another person died. The third person is in a serious condition and is being treated in a hospital in Raipur city and is not in a condition to give his statement,” said Kirtan Rathore, Additional Superintendent of Police.
The police how the men fell from the bridge was under investigation, but the descent was from a height of nearly 30 feet and the trio landed on a rocky patch.
On the family’s claims of mob lynching, Mr. Rathore said the post-mortem of one deceased and the short post-mortem report of the other could not conclusively establish the cause of death and they would have to wait for Mr. Saddam’s statement for further investigation. Earlier, he had said that because of multiple injuries caused due to the fall, it could not be established if there were ante-mortem injuries.
Mr. Rathore said the vehicle was found on the bridge with cattle. He added that CCTV footages along the route were being examined to establish the sequence of events.
Published - June 07, 2024 11:00 pm IST
