Faridabad: When a frail Siyanand Mishra visited the local jail in Faridabad, his son’s killer touched his feet and asked for forgiveness. “He said he thought my son was a Muslim. Now he regrets killing a Brahmin,” Mishra recalled, describing the painful meeting with the accused, Anil Kaushik, on 27 August.
Kaushik is known locally as the Monu Manesar of Faridabad, after the notorious Bajrang Dal member and ‘cow vigilante’ from Gurugram. Kaushik and four others were arrested for the murder of 19-year-old Aryan Mishra. Initially, the police suspected it to be a case of gang rivalry.
However, investigations have revealed that Kaushik and his associates thought that Aryan and his friends were smuggling cows in their car. The incident took place around 3 am on 24 August, barely three days after a Muslim migrant labourer in Charkhi Dadri was killed by a mob who thought he had consumed beef.
“I asked Kaushik, ‘Why would you kill a Muslim? Only because of a cow?’” said Mishra, sitting in a chair on the rooftop of his two-room apartment in Faridabad. “‘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.”
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
— Siyanand Mishra, victim Aryan’s father
The incident has sent shockwaves in Bajrang Dal circles. A member who oversees ‘cow protection’ activities in Palwal and Faridabad said all ‘gau rakshaks’ have been told not to take the law in their own hands but to alert the police if they notice any suspicious activity or receive a tip-off.
This story was originally published in theprint.in. Read the full story here.
