Karnataka lynching: Accused uses electric stungun on cow vigilante outings (The News Minute)

Idrees Pasha, the victim of the brutal lynching in Karnataka’s Ramanagara district, has black marks on his body resembling burn injuries, the police said, leading to suspicion that he was tortured with electric shocks from a stun gun or a taser before he died. Pasha, who was a cattle trader, was chased, assaulted, and killed on March 31 in Sathanur village in Kanakapura taluk, allegedly by a gang of Hindutva extremists who have been terrorising cattle traders in the region. Police have booked four people including Puneeth Kerehalli, a cow vigilante who has been photographed with top leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Puneeth has shot and published videos of himself ‘confronting’ cattle traders on his social media pages, and in one of the videos posted just a few days before Pasha’s murder, Puneeth is seen using a stun gun on a cattle trader to inflict pain.

The video from March 20 this year shows Puneeth and his associates stopping a truck carrying cattle in the outskirts of Bengaluru. Puneeth is seen ‘confronting’ and insulting a man named Waseem (a.k.a Aleemullah Baig), who is lying in a hammock inside the truck. Throughout the encounter, Puneeth assaults Waseem with a stun gun, while Waseem pleads innocence and says he took up the transportation job due to financial troubles at home.

TNM has learned that Puneeth then filed a complaint against Waseem and another person with the Electronic City police under the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Act, 2020. Police officials said that Waseem was involved in transporting cattle from Mysuru to Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu, and that they were unaware then of the Facebook Live video that Puneeth had posted. The matter will be looked into soon, they added…