Bajrang Dal man, Youtuber tied to 3 deaths

An absconding Monu Manesar remains unnamed in one death case, and is charged with abduction in another two

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Gurugram /Nuh/ Bhiwani: As the spectre of mob lynching is suspected to have made a comeback in Haryana with the suspicious deaths of three Muslim men, the name of Bajrang Dal (BD) member and selfstyled ‘gau rakshak’ (cow protector) Mohit Yadav alias Monu Manesar has taken centre stage.

 The deceased have been identified as Waris (22), native of Hussainpur village of Haryana’s Nuh district, apart from Junaid (35) and Nasir (27), who hail from Ghatmeeka village of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan.

The accused, who is absconding, remains unnamed in the first case and has only been charged with abduction in the latter two deaths.

Waris succumbs to injuries

The first victim, Waris, fell prey to cow vigilantes when he was returning from Bhiwadi city in Alwar district in Rajasthan to his home on January 28. While travelling in a car toward his native village of Hussainpur in Nuh district, he and his friends Nafees and Shaukeen were chased by BD-affiliated cow vigilantes, including Manesar, leading to an accident.

Manesar had livestreamed a video of him and fellow BD members interrogating Waris and his friends. The vigilantes claimed they had merely “rescued” a calf, which had been injured in the mishap. Shaukeen, who had been in the car with Waris, told Maktoob Media that they had been assaulted by the BD members from 5 am to 10 am as police watched on.

Waris was badly wounded and therefore succumbed to his injuries at a medical facility in Tauru town in Nuh district where he was shifted, Shaukeen claimed. BD members and local police claimed Waris had died of injuries sustained in the accident and consequently, no case has been registered against Manesar.

However, Waris’ co-passengers pointed out that accident had happened because Manesar and co had chased their car, adding that it was clear in the video which Manesar had live-streamed that Waris was not seriously injured in the accident and couldn’t have died because of the mishap.

A post-mortem report cited by Indian Express put Waris’ death down to “severe internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity due to rupture of the liver”. The deceased is survived by a wife and threemonth-old daughter.

Nasir, Junaid charred to death

On February 16, Nasir and Junaid, natives of Rajasthan, were allegedly abducted by the same BD group headed by Manesar and accompanied by a Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) team from Ferozepur-Jhirka in Haryana. Their charred remains were found inside their burned SUV recovered near farmland in Barwas village of Loharu tehsil in Bhiwani district of Haryana, which is near the Rajasthan border.

Junaid’s brother Ismail told mediapersons that the vigilantes had chased the duo and when they had tried to flee, they were cornered and then the CIA team’s fourwheeler rammed into the SUV in which the victims were travelling.

They were first extricated and beaten up and then locked inside their car, which was then set ablaze, Ismail claimed. Since then, Haryana police have formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the role of the CIA.

State-sanctioned ‘cow protector’, YouTuber

Monu Manesar, despite his extremist bent, retains his position as head of Nuh district’s cow protection force and member of the civil defence team in Manesar. He also has over 200,000 YouTube subscribers. He posted videos in which Manesar and his team engage in high-speech chases, waylaying alleged cow smugglers and posing with “rescued” cattle thereafter