Cow bully now ‘regrets’ killing a Brahmin, 'thought he was a Muslim'

Faridabad, NT Bureau: When a frail Siyanand Mishra visited the Faridabad jail, he confronted his 19-year-old son's killer, Anil Kaushik, a Bajrang Dal member who had mistaken the teenager for a Muslim and a "cow smuggler."

“He admitted he thought my son was a Muslim. Now, he regrets killing a Brahmin,” Mishra recounted, reflecting on the agonising encounter. Siyanand Mishra who visited the local jail in Faridabad, told The Print that his son’s killer, Anil Kaushik, touched his feet and asked for forgiveness.

Kaushik, who is known locally as the “Monu Manesar of Faridabad,” is notorious for his anti-Muslim actions. He is a member of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindutva group.

Kaushik and four other Hindutva men were arrested for the murder of 19-year-old Aryan Mishra. “I asked Kaushik, ‘Why would you kill a Muslim? Only because of a cow?’ You could have shot at the car wheel or called the police. Why take the law in your own hands?’ Kaushik didn’t have any response,” The Print quotes Mishra as saying.

“My son is not a cow smuggler. He was a devout Hindu,” he said. Aryan was shot in the head and right shoulder near the Gadpuri toll plaza on NH-19 in Haryana’s Palwal district on 23 August, after being chased by Hindutva men led by Kaushik for about 50 km.

Aryan was going out with his friends Harshit and Shanky in a Duster car around midnight on August 23 to eat noodles. The accused told police during questioning that they had received information that some “cattle smugglers” were conducting surveillance in the city using Duster and Fortuner SUVs.

The Hindutva men opened fire from the back and a bullet hit Aryan near the neck. The second bullet hit Aryan in the chest. Aryan was rushed to a nearby hospital, but he died a day later.

The accused, identified as Anil Kaushik, Varun Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Adesh Singh, and Saurav Kumar, have been arrested under sections 103(1) (punishment for murder), 190 (unlawful assembly), and 191(3) (armed with deadly weapons) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), 2023.

'Modi govt has given free hand to cow thugs to kill'

An inconsolable Siyanand Mishra, father of the 19-year-old Aryan, on Tuesday told The Telegraph: “The government has given them (cow vigilantes) the licence to kill people on the pretext of being involved in cow smuggling.

The (Narendra) Modi government has given this right to them — but why?” Rahul Gandhi on Sunday flagged hate attacks on Muslims in poll-bound Haryana and Maharashtra — where an elderly man was beaten inside a train on suspicion of possessing beef — accusing the BJP government of giving cow vigilantes “a free hand”.

Muslim organisations have alleged that the “beef” attacks in Haryana and Maharashtra have been planned deliberately to polarise voters ahead of the Assembly polls in these states. Sabir, 23, was beaten to death in Charkhi Dadri district of Haryana on August 27.

The following day, the police arrested seven people, including two juveniles, and said they were suspected to have links with cow vigilante groups. Sabir, a rag-picker, lived with his wife and two-yearold daughter in Hansawas Khurd village.

Hours before his death, a group of youths had called the police to the village claiming beef was being cooked and eaten in shanties there. While the police seized the meat and sent it for testing, the accused allegedly beat Sabirto to death.

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind said Sabir’s lynching had been planned to communalise the October 5 Assembly polls in Haryana.

“This mob violence has proved how communal elements consider themselves above the law and are taking the law into their own hands and targeting a particular community,” Jamiat chief Maulana Arshad Madani said.