Video footage showed one of the five men being beaten by a mob in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh
Five people, four of them Hindus, were punched and kicked by a mob that was angry at a dairy owner trying to skin a buffalo at home in western Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh. A video showed people raining blows on a man, at times snatching him from the police officer trying to evacuate him, before punching him again. Another police officer was seen trying to calm the residents, promising action.
The locals accused the men of first slaughtering the buffalo, and then skinning it. The police said this is the complaint that had reached them yesterday afternoon when they rushed to the city's Anchaltaal locality.
"We got information that a buffalo was being slaughtered in the home of someone called Kali Baghel. We reached there and have arrested 5 people," police officer Pankaj Shrivastava said. The officer said the crowd that had gathered was aggressive but the police officers managed to control the situation.
That they were slaughtering the buffalo is far from true, insist relatives of dairy owner Kali Baghel. They point that one of his buffaloes had died due to natural causes and the men were only trying to skin the buffalo to recoup some of their losses to sell its hide. Mr Shrivastava said they would probe the case.
"How else do you treat such people... they have to be beaten up till the slaughter does not end completely," said Vinay, one of the men who had led the assault. Reports indicated many people who had led the attack weren't from the area, but came after hearing about rumours of cow slaughter.