While three Muslim men were arrested on Tuesday for the alleged cow slaughter in Bulandshahr that preceded mob violence, reports say that the police have now deemed innocent four others who were arrested over two weeks ago.
The Indian Express reported that the Uttar Pradesh police have found that these men were ‘innocent’ and will approach the court for their release.
Bajrang Dal activist Yogesh Raj, the prime accused in the case of mob violence which led to the deaths of a police inspector and a civilian, had lodged a complaint accusing seven Muslims of cow slaughter.
Two of the seven were minor boys, who were also kept at the police station for a few hours before being released. The police have been unable to locate Raj till now.
Meanwhile, the three men arrested on Tuesday, Nadeem, Raees and Kala, were not even named in Raj’s complaint. But the police have said that their names came up during investigation.
NDTV quoted senior police officer Atul Srivastav as saying, “They were part of a gang that hunted cows and shot them with a double-barreled gun. They would slaughter the cows using sharp instruments like knives and share the meat.”
An FIR against 27 named people and 50-60 unidentified people was registered at the Siyana police station for the violence at Chingrawathi police post after cattle carcasses were found in the nearby Mahaw village of the district.
Police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and 20-year-old civilian Sumit Kumar, 20, were killed by bullet shots during the mob violence on 3 December.
An Army jawan, Jitendra Malik, has been arrested over Singh’s killing.
(With inputs from PTI)