The two men arrested for assaulting three villagers who were transporting cows in Govindgarh area early on Friday — one of them, Ummar, 42, died in the attack — have identified themselves as “gau rakshaks” and have confessed to the assault as well as mutilation of Ummar’s body, the Alwar police said on Tuesday.
The police also claimed that Ummar and his two companions, Tahir and Javed, were “habitual” cattle smugglers and were using a stolen pick-up truck to transport cows.
“We have arrested Ramveer Gujjar and Bhagwan Singh, both in their thirties, who have confessed to the assault. They are residents of villages which are near the village where the assault took place,” said Alwar Additional Superintendent of Police Mool Singh Rana.
“They told us that they had spotted an empty pick-up truck passing through their villages, and suspected that it would return with cows. They planned to waylay it if it returned with cows. When it did, they first threw nails in its path, but the pick-up truck moved on for a few metres,” said Rana.
“The gau rakshaks claimed that the people in the pick-up truck first fired at them, and so they returned fire. We have identified their four accomplices and efforts are on to nab them,” said Rana, adding that the duo had confessed that they had mutilated Ummar’s body and left it near the railway tracks “to make it look like an accident.”
The accused have been booked under IPC Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 147 (rioting) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence).
“Ummar, Tahir and Javed were habitual smugglers. The pick-up truck they were using was stolen from Uttar Pradesh and its numberplate belonged to a motorcycle,” said Rana, adding that Tahir and Javed would be apprehended soon.
Speaking to The Indian Express on Monday, Tahir and Javed had claimed that they were transporting milch cows purchased from Dausa. Their sarpanch, Shoukat, had said that theirs is a village of dairy farmers.
Alwar Superintendent of Police Rahul Prakash had said on Monday that both Tahir and Ummar were also wanted in previous cases. He had said that they had found “5-6 cases” against Tahir, including abduction, and that he had been absconding for some time. “Ummar too had been absconding since 2012 in a case under the RB Act (Rajasthan Bovine Animal [Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export] Act). We have written to the Bharatpur and Haryana police to see if there were more cases against them,” he had said.
While Ummar’s mutilated body was found on Friday morning, it was identified by his family on Saturday evening. The post-mortem is yet to be conducted. “We demand the arrest of all those responsible for his death, and compensation for his family,” said Ali Mohammad, former sarpanch of Ummar’s village of Ghatmika in Bharatpur.
