Pehlu Khan was lynched to death by a a vigilante mob of self-proclaimed gau rakshaks and the entire incident was caught on camera. But now, because of alleged lack of evidence, all those accused of his murder are out on bail.
Indian Express reported that the last two persons held in the lynching case have been granted bail by the Rajasthan High Court.
Harendra Singh, the advocate for the accused, told the newspaper that the Dayanand and Yogesh Kumar were granted bail on ground that their was was similar to the others accused.
Khan, who had gone to a cattle fair in Jaipur, was returning his home state Haryana, when he and his son were stopped by self-styled cow vigilantes on the way. The latter attacked Khan for illegally transporting cattle, though it was later revealed that he did have the required permit, and accused him of ferrying the animals for slaughter.
Amir Aziz, a lawyer who has opposed the bail of another accused, Ravindra, told the newspaper, "The entire investigation has been botched by the police. Those who were named in the FIR were given a clean chit while those arrested are now being let out on bail as they are not named in the FIR."
Two days after the assault, Khan died in a hospital, but not before naming the suspected killers to the police. A probe began into the incident, after an ugly controversy played out in public, with Rajasthan Home Minister GC Kataria apportioning blame for the death to both parties involved. Matters went bad enough for Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to step in for some belated damage control by promising fair enquiry into the tragedy.
Earlier this month, investigations by the Crime Investigation Department-Crime Branch (CID-CB) had found the six men — Om Yadav (45), Hukum Chand Yadav (44), Sudhir Yadav (45), Jagmal Yadav (73), Naveen Sharma (48) and Rahul Saini (24) — not guilty of the crime.