Alwar killing: Ummar’s companions arrested for cattle smuggling

Yash Goyal 

Jaipur, November 21

Two persons who were accompanying Ummar Khan, who was murdered in Alwar on November 10, were arrested on charges of cattle smuggling on Monday.

A dozen of NGOs have alleged police high-handedness in arresting “two main eyewitnesses and victims of cow vigilantes”.

Tahir and Javed were booked under sections of Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughtered Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 1995, and were arrested.

They were on Tuesday produced before a court which sent them to judicial custody for 14 days, Alwar CO Anil Beniwal said. 

“Two accused booked in police cases (old and new) were arrested under the Bovine Act and the arrest has nothing to do with the Ummar case in which they were injured,” Beniwal clarified.

In a joint statement, NGOs led by PUCL termed the arrest of the duo as “travesty of justice”.

“The Alwar district police should have arrested the killers, the so called “gau-rakshaks”, who tried to destroy evidence. Instead the victims are being arrested. Tahir and Javed are victims and eyewitnesses in the Ummar killing case. Basically, the police just want to build pressure on the two as they are the key witnesses of the killing and perhaps bargain a deal, frighten them and dilute the case. Clearly showing that the government has given absolute impunity to the killers… they will strike again and again,” the statement read.

The PUCL demanded the closure of FIR number 273/2017 and insisted that the state government and police take immediate action in the murder case. 

Ummar (33) of Ghatmika village under Pahari tehsil of Bharatpur while transporting six cattle in a pickup truck was found murdered on November 10 and his body was spotted by relatives on rail track later.

Tahir and Javed also got injured in the suspected cross-firing by cow vigilantes. Ummar's who had bullet injuries was buried after postmortem procedure performed on November 15. The Alwar police had so far arrested two accused in the case.