Raipur: Three gau rakshaks held for ‘assault’, vandalism at dairy

Senior police officers said that on Saturday evening, they received information of a clash at Gokul Nagar. “Investigations revealed that a group of gau rakshaks entered a dairy in the area on the suspicion that cow slaughter and beef trade were taking place there. They assaulted Qureshi and his associates at the dairy and vandalised the premises. We have CCTV footage of the incident and are investigating based on that,” he said.

On Sunday morning, a group of at least 50 members of right-wing groups such as Bajrang Dal alleged that the police action was one-sided and demanded that Qureshi be arrested on cow slaughter charges. They alleged that they found bones behind the shop. Police officers, however, said no evidence of cow slaughter has been found yet.

ASP Prafull Thakur said, “Three people identified as Ankit Dwivedi, Amarjeet Singh and Shubhankar Dwivedi have been arrested and sent to judicial custody. The sections of the IPC are 147 (rioting),148 (rioting with an armed weapon), 427 (mischief), 457 (trespass), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 380 (theft), and 120B (criminal conspiracy).”

Asked if a cross FIR has been registered, Thakur said, “No cross FIR has been registered as no crime has been committed by the other party as it stands. We are investigating.”