Imran Ismail Patel, a hotel employee in Aurangabad had yesterday filed a complaint against a group of 10 people alleging that a mob intercepted him while he was returning to his house and forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ following which he was thrashed by them. However, according to the police, the preliminary investigation revealed that the incident is being unnecessarily communalised and the evidence suggests that the scuffle occurred because of personal enmity.
The incident happened around Hudco corner on Thursday night. On his way home from work, he was stopped at Hudco Corner area by eight to ten youths. One of them took the keys to Imran’s motorcycle and asked where he lives. According to Imran, the gang whistled and forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to speak. When Imran raised reservations about chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’, he was allegedly intimidated and threatened of dire consequences by the mob. Petrified by this, Imran claims he shouted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ thrice in front of them.
However, as per Imran, the mob proceeded to beat him, despite complying to their demands. Meanwhile, disturbed by the ongoing brawl, Ganesh and his wife who lived nearby came out and rescued Imran. After this, Imran went to the Begumpura police station and filed a complaint against the mob.
The police commissioner Chiranjiv Prasad has said that the case has been registered and a probe is launched into the incident. He also added that some people are giving the incident a communal flair but evidence don’t lead in that direction. The eye-witnesses who came to Imran’s rescue have put paid to the claims made by Imran that he was forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Instead, they have asserted that the incident was a result of a personal feud.
When OpIndia contacted Aurangabad Police, they stated that they have registered a complaint against 10 assailants filed by the alleged victim Imran. The police said that the investigation is underway and in the light of the recent claims made by the eye-witnesses, it cannot be claimed with certainty that Imran was forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ by the assaulters.
The case appears similar to that of Unnao madarsa case where Muslim students were injured in a fight over cricket but it was deviously used to claim that they were beaten up for not chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. It is now increasingly becoming a pattern to attach chanting of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to seemingly unrelated incidents of violence where Muslims are victims to give it a communal angle and exculpate the victims from any wrongdoing that may have triggered the incident.