On a chilly morning in January, a automobile smashed right into a van in Tauru, a small city within the northern Indian state of Haryana.

Inside the automobile had been three younger Muslim males: Waris, Nafiz and Shaukeen.

Waris is now lifeless. Nafiz is in jail. And Shaukeen is but to return to phrases with the horrors of the night time.

Shaukeen alleges that his pal was crushed to loss of life by a bunch of Hindu males after they noticed a cow trussed up at the back of the automobile.

The 26-year-old claims the cow belonged to Nafiz, who was taking it again to his dwelling in Haryana from Bhiwadi district in neighbouring Rajasthan state. Shaukeen and Waris had been accompanying him once they had been chased by a bunch of cow vigilantes. These are Hindu males – largely armed with sticks and different weapons – who maintain a look ahead to automobiles transporting cattle to stop cow slaughter, which is unlawful in lots of Indian states.

The police, nevertheless, say that there have been no seen damage marks on Waris’s physique.

“We were informed about the road accident by a truck driver and some gau rakshaks [cow protectors]. When we reached the spot, the three men were inside the car. We took them to a nearby hospital. One of them died of his injuries later,” stated Varun Singla, superintendent of police in Haryana’s Nuh district, the place Tauru is situated.

He added that the van, which was carrying greens, had additionally been broken. “The driver was unscathed but his son, who was on the passenger seat, suffered minor injuries.”

Police arrested Nafiz and Shaukeen on cow smuggling costs as a result of they “found a cow in the car”, Mr Singla says.

But Shaukeen, who’s now out on bail, says that their automobile hit the van solely as a result of they had been being chased by a automobile which belonged to the cow vigilantes.

The BBC has accessed CCTV footage of the crash in Tauru. It reveals a four-by-four with a siren on its roof approaching the automobile moments after the accident.

Then, in accordance with a video filmed by a neighborhood man who was on the spot, a bunch of males who seemed to be armed with weapons, together with weapons, pulled out the cow from the automobile’s boot and bundled the three Muslim males into the four-by-four.

Shaukeen alleges he and his companions had been then crushed up by the gang, who later took them to hospital and that Waris died on the best way.

“Waris did not die in the accident. There was not a single injury from the crash,” he says, including that it was a “targeted killing” towards Muslims.

The cow is worshipped by thousands and thousands of Hindus, who’re the vast majority of India’s inhabitants. While cow slaughter was already a delicate matter and banned in some states, it has change into a hotly debated difficulty since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got here to energy nationally in 2014.

The BJP-led state governments have cracked down closely on cow slaughter. Sale and consumption of beef is now unlawful in about two-thirds of India’s 28 states, most of them ruled by the BJP, together with Haryana. Cow vigilante teams have been accused of imposing this ban by way of violence, usually resulting in assaults and even lynchings of largely Muslim meat sellers and cattle merchants.

At Waris’s dwelling in Nuh, his household continues to be grappling with the shock of his loss of life.

“If someone is committing a crime, any crime, the police should punish them,” says Imran, Waris’ elder brother.

He questions why vigilante teams within the state had been “given the right to take the law in their own hands”.

But Ravi Kiran, an inspector common of Haryana police, instructed the BBC {that a} put up mortem report confirmed that Waris’s loss of life had been brought on by the crash. He added that the police had been prepared to analyze the matter additional in the event that they acquired any new data on the case.

Shaukeen alleges {that a} man named Monu Manesar, a widely known cow vigilante who commonly uploaded movies of himself questioning cattle transporters, was the chief of the lads who assaulted them. On the day of the incident, Mr Manesar had live-streamed a video of Waris and his mates being “interrogated” by himself and another males. In the video, which has now been deleted from Mr Manesar’s Facebook profile, the Muslim males had seen accidents on their face.

“Monu was saying ‘beat them’ and everyone was hitting us. It was all done at the direction of Monu,” Shaukeen alleged.

The BBC could not contact Mr Manesar, who’s presently needed for questioning by police in one other case of alleged cow vigilantism. But in a BBC interview in January he had denied any involvement in Waris’s loss of life.

He claimed that his group had been knowledgeable {that a} cow was being loaded right into a automobile and reached the spot, solely to see the automobile pace away.

“I reached the site of the crash after about 35 minutes. I saw two police cars. The men in the car were slightly hurt so I told people to give water to them. The police later took them to the hospital,” he stated, including that he solely heard about Waris’s loss of life hours after the crash.

Imran alleged that his brother’s loss of life was half of a bigger sample of violent assaults by cow vigilante teams.

He linked Waris’s loss of life to a different high-profile case – the murders of two Muslim males, Junaid and Nasir – that made headlines in India a couple of weeks later.

The charred our bodies of Junaid and Nasir had been found in a burnt vehicle in Haryana’s Bhiwani district in February. Their relations have alleged they had been killed by members of a Hindu hardline group who, in accordance with media studies, accused them of cow smuggling. Five males, together with Mr Manesar, had been named within the police criticism however police have stated that solely three suspects have been arrested up to now.

The BBC visited Junaid and Nasir’s household in Bharatpur in Rajasthan.

“His body was brought in a bag. It was ashes. There was nothing, just a handful of ashes and a few bones,” stated Junaid’s spouse Sajida, wiping away tears.

She stated she was apprehensive about how she would take care of their six youngsters alone.

The deaths had sparked protests by Muslims in Bharatpur, who alleged that cow safety legal guidelines had been getting used to focus on them.

“Everyone is afraid. The fear is that they might pick you up. They pick up anyone, take them away, beat them, then they accuse them of anything like cow smuggling or transportation,” alleged Mahmur, Nasir’s older brother.

More than 100 miles away, in Haryana’s Manesar city, a bunch of males who recognized themselves as cow protectors gathered at a sprawling shelter.

The BBC spoke to a lot of them, who claimed that they labored with the police and acted inside the limits of the regulation. Some of them stated that they, too, had been generally attacked when on patrol.

“If there is a woman in the market and we see someone misbehaving, should we wait for the police?” asks Dharminder Yadav, who was the native cow safety group chief earlier than Mr Manesar took over.

Mr Yadav denied allegations of Muslims being focused. “Our laws say that we need to protect cows. Whatever our law says, it’s our duty to follow. Our enemy is the cow smuggler and not just Muslims,” he stated.

Shaukeen claims he’s now too scared to step out of his home.

“Waris is dead and I don’t want to be killed like him.”

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