AGENCIES / Guwahati / WEB DESK
Shoukat Ali
In yet another incident of cow vigilantism, an elderly Muslim man was allegedly beaten up and forced to eat pork by a group of people who were angry over his selling buffalo meat in Assam, police said on Tuesday.
The incident which happened on Sunday came to light when a video shot by one among the group of assailants went viral on social media. A case was registered with the Biswanath Chariali police station on the complaint of the victim’s brother Sahabuddin Ali on Monday evening.
The police superintendent said raids are on to apprehend others involved in the incident.
Consumption of pork is a taboo among most Muslims. The AIUDF and Jamiat Ulema’s Assam unit condemned the incident and claimed it was a conspiracy to disturb peace in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
The victim, Shaukat Ali, was assaulted by a group of locals at Madhupur weekly market in Biswanath district on Sunday and required hospitalisation, Superintendent of Police Rakesh Raushan said.
A video of the incident that has gone viral showed a dazed Ali surrounded by some people who angrily demanded to know from him where he came from and whether his name figured in the contentious National Register of Citizens that intends to weed out illegal migrants.
Ali, according to Raushan, was beaten up by locals not aligned to any fundamentalist organisation. The alleged victim, who owns a food stall, claimed he was force-fed pork by the assailants but police did not confirm it.
“We have also heard about that. It is a matter of investigation. It is only after that has been done that I will be able to tell,” the SP said. A man was arrested in connection with the incident and questioned.
Ali claimed he had been selling beef at the market for over three decades and never faced such a situation.
The group also beat up 42-year-old Kamal Thapa, the contractor of the market, for allowing Ali to sell beef dishes. Cow slaughter and consumption of beef is not banned in the state but the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 1950, permits slaughter of only cattle above 14 years of age after due certification by a veterinary officer.
Ali is now in hospital, nursing injuries all over his body. But the humiliation far exceeded the physical pain, Scroll report quoting him “Fine, they beat me up,” Ali said. “But why did they force me to eat pork? We only sell buffalo meat because Hindus do not eat there.”
His brother, a teacher in a lower primary school, was equally distraught, often breaking down in the middle of conversations. “If they thought my brother was doing a mistake, they could have called the police,” Rahman said. “But why force him to eat pork? All of us have some kind of reverence towards our faith. After what he had to go through he might as well be dead.”