Uttar Pradesh: Out on bail, butcher killed for objecting to cow slaughter

Police, however, claimed the allegations appeared to be false as the deceased, Shoaib Qureshi (40), was arrested on charges of cow slaughter a month ago and was released on bail only around 10 days ago.

While his family has alleged that he was strangled, the postmortem report has not ascertained the cause of the death, said police. However, a case of murder has been lodged against 12 people. No arrests have been made so far.

Shoaib’s brother Jameer told the police that on Thursday afternoon, neighbours came to the deceased’s house and started beating him up. While his family members tried to rescue him, the assailants strangled Shoaib, he has claimed.

“Jameer, who too is a butcher, has alleged all the 12 accused named in the FIR are involved in cow slaughter. He claimed they were angry as Shoaib was objecting to cow slaughter for the last few days. It has been found that Shoaib was a heart patient and also had diabetes,” Kotwali police Station House Officer Dharmendra Yadav said.

He added that investigation has found that Shoaib and an accused named in the FIR, Taleem, had a dispute over the ownership of a shop. “Taleem had also been jailed in a cow slaughter case earlier,” said the SHO.

“The allegation that Shoaib was strangled has not been corroborated in the postmortem report. It also stated that there were no injury marks on his body. The viscera has been preserved for a lab test,” he added.

The SHO said Shoaib, a resident of Nasrulla Bazaar, was arrested about a month ago on charges of cow slaughter. He was in jail for around 20 days before being granted bail.

“We would conduct a detailed probe into the allegations,” Rampur SP Sanjeev Tyagi said.