Almost two weeks after two women were gang-raped in Mewat, one of them has alleged that the attackers asked her if she ate beef.
“They asked if we eat beef. We said we don’t, but they insisted we did. Then they said we’re hurting you before so you don’t and that if we tell anyone we’ll will be insulted,” the woman said.
The police, however, maintain that neither the women nor their families had mentioned these allegations earlier. Senior police officers say so far, no link to cow vigilante groups have emerged.
The 20-year-old woman and her 14-year-old cousin were sexually assaulted by several men in their home in Mewat on the August 24. Their uncle and aunt were tied up and then beaten to death.
Haryana police arrested four men in their 30s from the village and booked them for trespass, rape and murder. “The main motive seems to have been rape,” the victims’ cousin told NDTV. “The four arrested men are known troublemakers in the village and had been seen drinking the morning of the attack”.
Tensions are running high in Mewat, Haryana’s Muslim-dominated region, ahead of Eidul Azha on Tuesday after a state-run laboratory confirmed traces of beef from seven biryani samples picked up by the police. Cow-slaughter, sale and storage of beef is illegal in Haryana. It is punishable by a 10-year jail term and/or a fine of INR100,000 to Rs500,000.
Courtesy: NDTV