Alwar lynching: Police to probe delay in taking Rakbar to hospital

The Rajasthan Police on Monday formed a high-level team to probe the reasons for the alleged delay in taking to the hospital a man who died after being allegedly thrashed by a mob of 'gau rakshaks'.

Director General of Police O.P. Galhotra said the team will find out why there so much time was wasted in transporting Rakbar alias Akbar to a hospital that was just four kilometres from the site where he was beaten up on Saturday.

The team shall include senior officers N.R.K. Reddy, P.K. Singh, Hemant Priyadarshi and Mahendra Singh Chaudhary.

The team has been asked to probe why if the policemen reached the site at 1 a.m., the victim was taken to the hospital only at 4 a.m., said a police official.

It is alleged that the policemen stopped on the way to have tea before heading to the hospital.

According to Naval Sharma, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Gau Raksha cell chief in Ramgarh, the FIR says that the police reached the site at 12.41 a.m. and the victim was taken by them by 1 a.m.

However, surprisingly, the police reached the hospital at 4 am. The postmortem report says the victim died at 3.40 a.m.

A social worker of the region, Vijay Kumar, told IANS that Akbar and Aslam were taking bovines from the fields at midnight. When the animals cried out, some villagers came out and thrashed Akbar.

As it was raining heavily, Akbar fell on the muddy field and his companion Aslam escaped. By then, the police reached the spot.

However, as the victim was covered in mud, the police refused to take him in their vehicle and asked villagers to clean him.

The villagers poured water on him. Dharmendra, who was later taken as an accused by the police, brought clothes from his house.

Vijay Kumar says the policemen were drunk and they too might have beaten him as the victim had earlier records of cow smuggling.

According to him, when Akbar died, the police came to the village to arrest the witnesses to save their skin.

The cows, meanwhile, were shifted to a 'gaushala' at 3.26 a.m. in a three-wheeler.

Alwar Superintendent of Police Rajendra Singh told the media: "We will investigate the matter thoroughly and take action against the accused."

--IANS

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