Nagpur: The police have said the meat seized from a BJP member brutally beaten up by alleged cow vigilantes in Maharashtra's Nagpur district has been found to be beef.
A forensic laboratory test report has identified the meat as beef, Shailesh Balkawde, superintendent of police, Nagpur – rural, told PTI on Saturday.
The police said they would initiate action against 34-year-old Salim Shaha, a member of the BJP's Katol unit, in accordance with the law.
Shaha, a resident of Katol town, was returning home on his motorcycle when a group of five or six men accosted him at a bus stop in the Bharsingi village on July 12. They allegedly assaulted him on the suspicion that he was carrying beef.
Shaha's family, however, said he may not have known what he was carrying.
The family was initially reluctant to talk about the forensic report, stating that the family was already "in trouble".
But "Salim may not have been aware of what he was carrying," a relative said.
The Nagpur (rural) unit president of the BJP, Rajiv Potdar, said Shaha would be dismissed from the party.
After Shaha was beaten up and taken to a hospital, four men – Ashwin Uike (35), Rameshwar Taywade (42), Moreshwar Tandurkar (36) and Jagdish Chaudhari (25) – were arrested and booked under IPC section 326, pertaining to voluntarily causing grievous hurt.
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