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Dadri Lynching: Meat Sample Belongs To Cow Or Its Progeny, Says Forensic Report

Dadri Lynching: Meat Sample Belongs To Cow Or Its Progeny, Says Forensic Report
Betwa Sharma

NEW DELHI -- Eight months after a Muslim man was lynched by a mob alleging that he had slaughtered a calf, and six months after the preliminary report said that the sample of meat recovered from his house was mutton, a report prepared by a forensic laboratory in Mathura has found that the meat in question belonged to "cow or its progeny."

On Tuesday, several media outlets reported that a laboratory based in Mathura had concluded the meat belonged to "cow or its progeny."

Mohammad Akhlaq, an ironsmith, was dragged out his house and beaten to death in Bisada village of Dadri tehsil in western Uttar Pradesh on September 28. His son, Danish, was brutally beaten.

While eating beef is not prohibited in Uttar Pradesh, cow slaughter is banned. But whether it was, chicken, mutton or beef does not justify murdering a man.

The family has insisted that they had not slaughtered a calf, and the meat was mutton.

"Initially we did say mutton but subsequently we were told by the lab that it was beef," Uttar Pradesh police chief Javed Ahmed told NDTV.

The horrific episode triggered a nationwide debate on "rising intolerance" in the country, with activists and writers expressing grave concern about the treatment of minorities under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government which came to power in May 2014.

The Dadri Lynching was also hugely embarrassing for India on the international stage, with the incident being widely reported in the foreign press.

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