Indian police yesterday said one person had been arrested after a mob stabbed a Muslim teenager to death on suspicion of carrying beef, an offense in many parts of the Hindu-majority country.
Cows are revered by Hindus and slaughtering them, as well as possession or consumption of beef, is banned in most Indian states, with some imposing life sentences for breaking the law.
Junaid Khan, 15, was on Friday traveling from New Delhi with three of his brothers when a fight erupted over seats.
Between 15 and 20 men pulled out knives and set upon the brothers while making anti-Muslim comments and insisting one of the packets they were carrying contained beef.
While Khan was stabbed to death, his brother Shakir sustained injuries on the throat, chest and hands, police said.
“The fight started over seats. We are looking into the matter and we have arrested one of the accused, who is a 35-year-old man from Haryana,” railway police official Ajay Kumar told reporters.
Khan’s brother Hassem told reporters the mob ignored their repeated pleas that they were not carrying any beef.
“They were pointing at a packet which had food and saying we should not be allowed to sit since we were carrying beef,” Haseem said.
The incident is the latest such attack by Hindu vigilantes in India, where there has been a spate of assaults against Muslims and Dalits.
In the past two years, nearly a dozen Muslim men have been killed across the country on suspicion of eating beef or smuggling cows.
Critics say vigilantes have been emboldened by the election in 2014 of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party.
Modi last year criticized the cow protection vigilantes and urged a crackdown against groups using religion as a cover for committing crimes.
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
‘FALSE NARRATIVE’: China and the Solomon Islands inked a secretive security pact in 2022, which is believed to be a prelude to building a Chinese base, which Beijing denied The Australian government yesterday said it expects China to spy on major military drills it is conducting with the US and other allies. It also renewed a charge — denounced by Beijing as a “false narrative” — that China wants to establish a military base in the South Pacific. The comments by a government minister came as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a six-day visit to China to bolster recently repaired trade ties. More than 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations are set to join in the annual Talisman Sabre exercises from yesterday across Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The Chinese military have
RSS