Two minors who were part of a mob that allegedly lynched Pehlu Khan, the 55-year-old dairy farmer in 2017, convicted in the case by a juvenile board.
New Delhi| In the first conviction for the horrific lynching of Pehlu Khan in 2017, two minors have been found guilty by a Juvenile Justice Board in Alwar, a senior police official said.
“The board convicted two minors on Thursday. Sentencing will be pronounced on Saturday,” IG Jaipur S Sengathir said.
The two minors were part of a mob that allegedly lynched the 55-year-old dairy farmer in 2017.
A sessions court had acquitted all the six persons accused of beating him to death, while giving them the benefit of the doubt, on August 14 last year. Later, the Congress government in Rajasthan had filed an appeal in the High Court against the acquittal.
The six accused — Vipin Yadav, Ravindra Kumar, Kaluram, Dayanand, Yogesh Kumar and Bheem Rathi — were given the benefit of doubt and were acquitted.
The state government filed an appeal against the court order in the high court in October.
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Pehlu Khan, his two sons and a few others were transporting cows from Jaipur when they were intercepted and thrashed by cow vigilantes near Alwar’s Behror on April 1, 2017.
Pehlu Khan died due to his injuries on April 3 in a hospital.
After the acquittal of the six men by the lower court, the state government formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the factors that led to the verdict. The team recommended that new evidence be gathered and the suspects named or identified by earlier investigating officers be probed because a charge sheet against a juvenile delinquent hadn’t yet been filed.
The SIT was formed on August 17 and gave its 84-page report to the director-general of police Bhupendra Singh on September 5. SIT pointed to loopholes in probes conducted by each of the four investigating officers of the lynching case.
Khan was attacked on the Delhi-Jaipur highway near Behror in Alwar district on suspicion of smuggling cows when he was transporting cattle bought from a weekly market in Jaipur to his home in Nuh with his two sons. He died in hospital on April 3, 2017.
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