Image for representation only. Getty ImagesNagpur/Mumbai: A 31-year-old Muslim man with links to BJP was brutally thrashed by alleged cow vigilantes in public on suspicion of carrying beef in Maharashtra's Nagpur district.
Police arrested four people for the assault on Wednesday after a video of the incident showing the man being kicked and punched even after he fell to the ground went viral.
The incident drew strong condemnation from the ruling BJP's coalition partner Shiv Sena, besides the opposition Congress and NCP.
However, the BJP sought to play it down, calling it a "stray" incident.
The mother of the victim- Salim Ismail Sheikh- claimed he was the head of the BJP's Katol tehsil minority morcha, while a local BJP leader acknowledged he was a party member.
Sheikh, a resident of Katol town, was returning home on his motorcycle when 5-6 men accosted him at a bus stop in Bharsingi village on suspicion that he was carrying beef. They demanded that they be shown the meat. When he resisted, the men assaulted him, Nagpur rural superintendent of police Shailesh Balkawade said.
Sheikh suffered injuries to his face and neck, and was admitted to a hospital in Nagpur from where he was discharged on Thursday.
The police established the identity of the accused after going through the footage of a purported video clip of the incident. Two of the accused were arrested last night and others this morning, the SP said.
Those arrested were identified as Ashwin Uike (35), Rameshwar Taywade (42), Moreshwar Tandurkar (36) and Jagdish Chaudhari (25). They were booked under IPC sections 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) and 34 (acts done in furtherance of common intention), the SP said.
Section 326 of IPC attracts a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
All four were produced before a judicial magistrate's court in Katol and remanded in police custody till July 17, Balkawade added.
The SP said the meat Sheikh was carrying was seized and sent to a forensic lab in Nagpur for tests.
The police were trying to ascertain whether the accused were cow vigilantes, he said.
While Sheikh refused to speak to the media, his mother said her son was innocent. He was a cotton trader and the head of BJP's Katol tehsil minority morcha, she said.
Rajiv Potdar, chief of BJP's Nagpur rural unit, said Sheikh was a member of the party and was an office bearer of its tehsil unit between 2013 and 2016.
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