Kota: Political and human rights groups have organized a grand protest in Kota district of Rajasthan against the lynching of a Muslim trader in the northwestern Indian state.

Protesters on April 7 demanded the resignation of Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria for the state administration’s failure.

Pahlu Khan, who was lynched by cow vigilantes in Alwar district on April 1, succumbed to injuries four days later. The incident was referred to as “…nothing such happened” by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, federal Minister for Minority Affairs.
Welfare Party of India and Social Democratic Party of India (WPI) were among the main organizers of the protest.

Muhammad Khalid, the state president of youth wing of WPI, said people should respect faith and religion of others, but crime and hooliganism will not be tolerated. “If administration doesn’t stop public from taking law in hands, there soon will be situations like civil war in the state,” he warned.

District president of WPI Asif Hussain asked for capital punishment against the key accused in this case. He said, “Those policeman should also be punished who stood and watched the whole lynching accident.”

Protesters also asked for presidential rule in the state, saying the ruling BJP government is incompetent.

Protesters handed a memorandum of appeal before district collector for the chief minister of Rajasthan, a with copies to the Supreme Court of India, High Court of Rajasthan and National Human Rights Commission.

About 200 cow protection vigilantes surrounded six vehicles carrying cattle on a highway connecting Jaipur to New Delhi and pulled out five men, apparently Muslims, and beat them at Behror, some 280 km north of Kota.

Khan, 55, died following the mob action, twocircles.net reported.

An official from Khan’s village said that he was transporting cows for use in a dairy. He denied they were being transferred for slaughter, which is illegal in Rajasthan.

Video of the episode, which has circulated widely, showed men in white curled up on the roadside as they were kicked and whipped with belts and metal rods. The mob was so agitated that the police had to use force to disperse it.

Police arrested 11 men transporting the cattle and accused them of smuggling the animals. No assailant in the cow protection group was arrested, but a criminal case has been opened.