Two more suspects involved in the assault of an elderly Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district have been arrested, the police said on Tuesday. With this, three arrests have been made in the case.
A video of the man, identified as Abdul Samad, being assaulted went viral on social media on Sunday. The incident occurred in Ghaziabad district’s Loni area. The Muslim man was allegedly beaten up and his beard was cut off. He was also reportedly asked to chant “Jai Shri Ram”.
In another video, Samad said he was assaulted for hours at gunpoint after being taken to a room in a forested area. The police had arrested main accused Parvesh Gujjar on Sunday.
In a video statement, the superintendent of police, Ghaziabad (rural), said that they have arrested two more accused, Kallu Gujjar and Adil. The other accused Poli, Arif and Mushahid have also been identified and will soon be arrested, the police said.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Ghaziabad Police said the incident took place on June 5, when Samad went to Gujjar’s house in Loni. Gujjar and his associates assaulted Samad because he had allegedly sold them an amulet that had a “negative effect” on their families, the police said. The statement also mentioned that Samad was in the business of making and selling amulets and was an earlier acquaintance of Gujjar and others.
The police’s statement is markedly different from Samad’s account who had said in a video that the accused forced him to chant Hindu deity Ram’s name, when he was “praying to Allah” while being beaten up. He also said that the accused told him that they had beaten up many Muslims and showed him videos of people from the community being beaten up.
The police did not mention any of these in its statement.
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