They were let off by a court in 2019 police probe had ‘serious shortcomings’
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Rajasthan High Court has issued warrants against six persons who were acquitted by a trial court in Alwar in the Pehlu Khan lynching case of 2017 after admitting the appeal filed by his son Irshad.
The trial court had acquitted them on August 14, 2019, after a police probe failed to conclusively fix their role in lynching Khan. The court had said that the probe has “serious shortcomings” and let off Vipin Yadav, Kalu Ram, Dayanand, Ravindra Kumar, Yogesh Kumar, and Bheem Rathi.
The appeal argues that the trial court was wrong in discarding the testimony of eye witness who had taken the name of the accused during the investigation.
Apart from Irshad’s plea, the government had also filed an appeal against the trial court decision on the basis of a probe by the special investigation team which pointed out lacunae in the police investigation. Both the appeals have been clubbed.
The bailable warrant by a Division Bench comprising Justice Goverdhan Bardhar and Justice Vijay Bishnoi was issued on Monday in the sum of ₹10,000 returnable within eight weeks.
Fifty-five-year-old Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer from Haryana, was lynched by a mob of cow vigilantes on the Jaipur-Delhi National Highway on April 1, 2017, accusing him of smuggling cows. The brutal act caught on camera sparked massive outrage and went on to becoming an iconic episode of attack on ordinary Muslims by right-wing goons in the name of cow protection.
Apart from six acquitted, two accused who were minors at the time of the attack were convicted by a Juvenile Justice Board in March 2020, and sent to a special home for three years, while a third, also a minor, is absconding.
The police had also filed a case against victim Kahn for smuggling cows but the High Court quashed the case and said that he had purchased cows for dairy farming and not slaughter.
