In yet another horrific act, a group of right-wing militants thrashed women in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh for nearly half an hour while police remained mute spectators.
According to a video report by NDTV, the right-wing militants slapped, kicked abused the Muslim women while Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cops watched.
The incident, recorded by a mobile phone had reportedly happened on Tuesday.
In the disturbing video, while people at Mandsaur railway station continued to record the incident, no one cared to come forward to save the women from brutal assaults.
The police, according to the report, were at the railway station to arrest the two Muslim women they claimed were allegedly travelling with a large quantity of beef to sell.
The women were assaulted by the right-wing militants even after police took them in their custody in presence of a crowd that had gathered at the railway station.
In the video, the women are cornered by a crowd that is heard screaming “Gau Mata Ki Jai (Hail holy cow)”. They are slapped and punched by the women in the mob until one of them collapses.
As expected, the policemen made no serious efforts to protect the women from the blows.
Police sources said 30 kg of meat has been recovered from the women. However, the doctors, who examined the meat reportedly said that the meat was of buffalo and not cow.
What many would find astonishing is that cops have gone ahead to charge the victim women because they did not have a permit to sell meat.
No action has been taken against the thugs, who assaulted the women, or the policemen at the spot.
State home minister Bhupendra Singh had standard statement ready, when he said, “No one can take law in their own hands. A probe will be conducted.”
Right-wing groups masquerading as cow protectors have stepped up their acts of terror against Muslims and Dalits in the recent past. Gujarat, another BJP-governed state, has been on the boil after a group of militants publicly thrashed four Dalit youth alleging that they were skinning leather of a dead cow.