Group ‘leader’ unrepentant despite charges
Patiala:A day after the Rajpura police booked Gau Raksha Dal chief Satish Kumar for rioting, extortion and other charges, more videos showing attacks on trucks “carrying cattle for slaughter” have surfaced.
The videos show truck drivers being beaten up and kept in confinement and their vehicles being torched. Some of the victims were even told to drink the urine of the accused or face the consequences.
The police are trying to identify the victims seen in these videos.
Sources said the videos, many of which are available online, showed Kumar and his henchmen conducting raids on the national highway — often with policemen as escorts in blue-beacon vehicles.
“The accused have been operating for the past many years without any fear of the law,” they added.
Officials probing the case said they had attached some video clips shot in the past few years as evidence.
“In one of the videos, a disabled man is being beaten up with sticks despite his repeated pleas that he cannot fold his legs,” they said.
A few self-styled groups today dubbed the videos as “short films being shot to create awareness on cow slaughter and its consequences.”
Rajpura SP RS Sohal appealed to people to come forward with information about the victims.
“We are also trying to find out what these persons did with the cows that were stolen by them. Our investigation will establish whether the gangsters were involved in the sale and purchase of cattle in the garb of cow protection,” said SSP Gurmeet Chauhan.
Satish Kumar has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks against cow vigilantism were motivated by votebank politics due to the upcoming elections in many states.
“The PM’s statement is one-sided. If he had warned the butchers not to slaughter or smuggle cows, then his statement would have been justified. He is playing votebank politics to get the butchers’ vote,” Kumar said.
He added that the police were free to arrest him. Kumar was unapologetic about the treatment meted out to the victims in the videos. “If anyone kills a cow, we will treat them the same way in which they were treating the cows. I am not sorry about it.”
“Some of the videos are more than two years old, when I was given security personnel,” he claimed.
