Mumbai, India – Rafiq Tamboli would have been 33 years previous now. Or possibly he nonetheless is. His spouse doesn’t know if he’s useless or alive. Nobody has seen him for at the very least two years.

A resident of Qureshi Nagar in Mumbai’s Kurla locality, Rafiq labored as a driver transporting meat for a few merchants within the animal business.

On June 4, 2021, he acquired an project to choose up meat from town of Daund in Pune district of Maharashtra – about 250km (155 miles) from Mumbai, the state capital.

After loading the meat in his truck, Rafiq launched into a five-hour journey again house at about 9pm. He known as his spouse, Reshma Tamboli, simply earlier than he began driving.

“It was a normal conversation,” the 35-year-old instructed Al Jazeera. “I asked him if he had had dinner. He said he would in half an hour or so. That was about it.”

Little did Reshma know that it will be their final dialog.

At about 10:30pm that evening, Rafiq’s truck was intercepted and stopped by cow vigilantes on the freeway close to the village of Ravangaon in Daund. He has not been seen since then – neither alive nor useless.

What occurred after that’s anyone’s guess.

When Rafiq didn’t return that evening, Reshma frantically began calling him. The cellphone was switched off.

When he didn’t return even three days later, she went to the native police station in Mumbai’s Chunabhatti locality to file a grievance.

“The police called the man Rafiq worked for,” Reshma stated. “That’s when he told us that his truck was intercepted by cow vigilantes in Daund.”

The second she heard that, her coronary heart sank.

Since 2014 when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got here to energy beneath the management of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, instances of mob lynching beneath the pretext of defending cows, thought-about holy by some Hindus, have been rising in India.

Critics imagine the cow vigilantes, who’re organised, typically armed and as soon as discovered on the fringes of society, have become mainstream after they began having fun with the BJP’s political patronage.

A New Delhi-based centre which has collated information on atrocities in opposition to India’s minorities, primarily Muslims, since 2014 has a class for cow-related violence.

The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) database, which has been up to date till August final yr, discovered 206 such situations involving greater than 850 individuals – an awesome majority of them Muslims.

‘Even if you have killed him, just let me know’

Reshma, fearing the worst, instantly travelled to Daund police station, the place Rafiq’s truck was parked.

“The police told us that the driver of the truck had run away,” she instructed Al Jazeera. “The cow vigilantes had told the police about it in a written statement.”

The assertion was written by a self-proclaimed cow vigilante, named Shiv Shankar Swami.

In the assertion, Swami, 27, stated he heard from his sources at 5pm that day a few truck carrying cow meat to Mumbai.

According to the assertion, Swami gathered some members of his Akhil Bhartiya Krishi Gauseva Sangh (All India Agriculture Cow Service Organisation) and waited for Rafiq at Ravangaon village in Daund alongside the Pune-Solapur freeway.

At 10:30pm, Swami’s assertion says, they observed the truck and signalled the driving force to tug over. The second the driving force, Rafiq, noticed the cow vigilantes, he ran away they usually couldn’t catch him, Swami stated.

The assertion additional alleges the truck was carrying about two tonnes of cow and bull meat coated in ice. The group then known as the Daund police and requested them to confiscate the truck.

However, Reshma asks if that was the case, why hasn’t Rafiq contacted his household since.

“Why would he not come home for two years?” she asks. “Why wouldn’t he want to see his kids?”

She breaks down recalling the time when she had the dialog along with her youngsters about the potential for their father by no means coming again. Her daughter, Shaista, is 12 and son, Hasan is 10.

“They kept asking where he is,” Reshma instructed Al Jazeera.

“What was I supposed to tell them? Eventually, I told them your father may never return. I hope no mother ever has to have this conversation with her kids.”

Reshma says she even met Swami at Daund police station and fell onto his toes asking about her husband. “I pleaded with him to tell me about Rafiq’s whereabouts,” she stated.

“I said even if you have killed him, just let me know. All I want right now is closure. I just want to know if he is dead or alive. I can’t even mourn properly with this uncertainty.”

But Swami caught to his story and instructed Reshma she was like his sister, and he didn’t have the licence to kill individuals.

But it’s not so simple as that.

‘They mentioned Swami’s title’

On June 24 this yr, two Muslim men from the identical locality the place Reshma lived have been coming back from Nashik, about 200km (124 miles) from Mumbai, carrying 450kg (990 kilos) of meat.

Again, the cow vigilantes intercepted their automobile, dragged them out and took them to a close-by forested space, the place they have been tied to a tree trunk and overwhelmed for 3 hours.

One of them, Afan Ansari, 32, died on the spot. The different, Nasir Hussain, 24, survived.

“When I spoke to Hussain, he categorically mentioned the name of Shiv Shankar Swami that he overheard among the cow vigilantes,” Hussain’s uncle Shafiullah Shah instructed Al Jazeera.

“They mentioned his [Swami’s] name while beating the boys up.”

According to Shah, Hussain instructed him that the vigilantes acquired a cellphone name the place the person on the opposite finish – presumably Swami – instructed them to “kill the landyas” – a slur generally used in opposition to Muslims in BJP-ruled Maharashtra.

An web search of Swami’s title throws up a number of information reviews of cow vigilantism in Maharashtra courting between 2015 and 2017. He has been beneath police safety since 2015 attributable to a “threat perception” to his life as a result of he has filed a number of police instances in opposition to cow smuggling and supposedly made enemies.

Swami can be a government-appointed “honourary animal welfare officer”, in response to media reviews.

Reshma, due to this fact, says she has no hope of ever getting justice or closure. For a yr now, she has stopped pursuing the matter with the Daund police.

“Initially, the police carried out a small search operation when I went to the police station,” she stated.

“But I can’t keep going back. I have two kids to look after. I have already spent a lot of money going back and forth from Daund. The pursuit of justice is expensive in India.”

Bhausaheb Patil, the police inspector at Daund, instructed Al Jazeera final week that Rafiq’s is “an old case and I will have to look into it” for the newest updates.

When requested what could be a great time to name again, he stated, “I am in a meeting and I will get back to you.” Patil by no means did.

Reshma ran from pillar to publish within the first yr of Rafiq’s absence. She even printed posters of him and plastered them herself across the areas the place he went lacking.

“I was all alone in the night, installing the missing posters,” she recalled. “I went at night so I could return the next day to Mumbai and work. I didn’t even worry about my safety.”

One time, Reshma had gone to Daund for a follow-up along with her youngsters and the police instructed her to come back again the subsequent morning. She didn’t have cash for a lodge nor did she know anybody within the metropolis.

“I slept on the road under a tree with my kids,” she instructed Al Jazeera. “I have done everything I could but I couldn’t keep up with it.”

Reshma and Rafiq had saved about 100,000 rupees ($1,218) and made a set deposit for his or her youngsters. She needed to break the deposit to pay for the bills incurred whereas following up the case.

“I realised I would jeopardise my kids’ future if I keep at it,” says Reshma. “So I have retreated now.”

Every day, she wakes up and will get her youngsters prepared for varsity, after which she goes to the market to promote onions and potatoes.

“My in-laws used to do it,” she says. “But after they passed away about six, seven years ago, I took over. I make 250-300 rupees ($3.05-3.66) per day. I just want to ensure a good life for my kids.”

Reshma is resigned to the concept Rafiq won’t ever come again. She is sort of sure the cow vigilantes killed him. But even then, she typically grapples with the thought of a miracle.

“The thought does come up every now and then,” she admits. “What if he is alive?” But then the uncertainty takes over once more. “It is a horrible feeling to live with.”