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Hindu Groups Harass Activists Paying Tribute To Pehlu Khan, Even As His Family Blames Govt For Protecting Murderers

Gross injustice.
Author and activist Harsh Mander, along with other Karwan-e-Mohabbat activists, sits in a dharna at the spot where Pehlu Khan was killed.
Twitter/karwanemohabbat
Author and activist Harsh Mander, along with other Karwan-e-Mohabbat activists, sits in a dharna at the spot where Pehlu Khan was killed.

Remember Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words against cow vigilantes and mob lynchings? They seemd to have fallen to deaf ears.

The police in Rajasthan were forced to deploy police forces at the spot where cattle farmer Pehlu Khan was killed in April this year, after Hindu groups stopped activists from paying tributes the victim of the hate crime.

Karwan-e-Mohabbat or the 'caravan of love' a movement that seeks justice for the victims of mass violence planned to pay tributes to Khan at the spot where he was killed. Activist Harsh Mander was part of the group that paid tributes to Khan at Behrod in Alwar.

However, this was stopped by Hindu activists chanting 'Bharat Mata ki jai' and 'Vande Mataram', reports Hindustan Times.

The report quotes one of the protesters as saying, "We won't let you pay tribute to Pehlu Khan. Is he Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose or the men fighting at the borders that people would pay tribute?"

The group affiliated to right-wing Hindu outfits had earlier warned Karwan-e-Mohabbat that they wouldn't allow tributes to be paid to Khan.

The Karwan-e-Mohabbat Twitter handle had said that it was "the usual suspects" who wanted to stop them.

Their Twitter handle also said that the Hindu groups had warned them that they will be beaten with sticks.

However, the bus carrying activists of Karwan-e-Mohabbat was able to reach the spot where Mander sat on a Dharna.

The group also tweeted Mander as saying that while they had been given security by the police, those who were most in need of it did not get it.

The incident comes even as six cow vigilantes, held in connection with Khan's murder, were given clean chits by the Rajasthan police on Thursday.

In April this year, Khan was on his way back home to Haryana after attending a cattle fair in Jaipur, he was stopped in Alwar where cow vigilantes beat him mercilessly. The perpetrators of the crime had alleged that Khan was illegally transporting cattle. It was later found that Khan had the required documents to prove that he had bought the cattle legally.

Khan died of his injuries two days later. The video of his lynching went viral and those who were part of the mob were clearly visible in the video.

Khan's family have meanwhile said that the six people who were allowed to get off scot-free were men of the RSS and Bajran Dal who were being protected by the government.

The Wire quoted Khan's eldest son Irshad as saying, "This is absolutely wrong. We don't accept the investigation at all. Those men were RSS and Bajrang Dal agents and that's the reason why the government is protecting them. Everyone is being sold. All the six men were present on the spot, Abbaji had himself named them before his death. How can they say that they were not present on the spot on the basis of mobile phone data records and set them free?"

They say they will approach the Supreme Court as a step forward.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.