JAISALMER/JAIPUR: A Muslim youth suspected of stealing a mobile phone was allegedly stripped, thrashed and sodomised with an iron rod in Rajasthan’s Barmer district around three weeks ago, his brother said in an FIR filed on Thursday after a video of the assault surfaced on social media.
The case was filed at Barmer (rural) police station amid shock and outrage over a similar incident in Nagaur last Sunday, involving two Dalit cousins who had been brutally assaulted by a group of men after being accused of stealing money from a motorbike servicing centre.
Rajasthan: One man was allegedly beaten in Barmer on suspicion of stealing a mobile phone. Sharad Chaudhary, SP Bar…
According to the brother of the Barmer victim, his sibling kept quiet about the attack on him at Tirsingri village on January 29 until someone shared a video clip purportedly showing two men attacking him repeatedly and later using a rod to sodomise him.
The victim has since not returned home and switched off his mobile phone, his brother said.
Based on the FIR, the police have arrested one person seen in the video and detained another.
“The complainant has named one Moti Singh and Bharat Singh as the two men who attacked his brother. Prima facie the role of Moti Singh in the assault has been established on the basis of the available footage. The other accused is being questioned,” Barmer SP Sharad Chaudhary told TOI.
Moti has been booked for kidnapping (Section 365 of the IPC), wrongful confinement (342), voluntarily causing hurt (323) and extortion (384).
The accused had called the victim, a driver by profession, to a dhaba and allegedly forced him to drink liquor before forcibly taking him to another location, the complainant said. “My brother was beaten repeatedly with an iron rod and chains. The same rod was used to sodomise him.”
This story first appeared on timesofindia.indiatimes.com