The Incident Comes Days After Election Results

Newsreel Asia Insight #245
June 8, 2024

Two Muslim men were beaten to death by cow vigilantes while transporting buffaloes in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, on June 7, as reported by News18 Hindi. The attack occurred just three days after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election results, which are widely being viewed as a rejection of the use of communal issues in politics.

The victims, identified as Chand Miya and Guddu Khan, were discovered deceased in the Mahanadi River. A third individual, Saddam Khan, sustained critical injuries and was receiving medical treatment.

The men, all hailing from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, were en route to Odisha with their cargo when they were intercepted by a mob in the Arang area near the Mahanadi bridge.

The violence reportedly began after a group of youths noticed the truck and began trailing it. The assailants allegedly used spikes to halt the vehicle, forcefully extracted the occupants and commenced a brutal assault. Amid the chaos, one victim attempted to escape by jumping into the river.

Local authorities are still investigating the precise causes of death, considering both the physical assault and potential drowning as factors. The mob accused the men of cow smuggling, a charge often levelled in such vigilante attacks, which surged over the last 10 years.

Since 2014, there has been a surge in mob lynching incidents across North India, driven not only by allegations of cow slaughter but also by the victims' names or other visible markers of their community identity, the Frontline magazine noted in March.

Chhattisgarh is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the general elections held from April 19 to June 1, the BJP won 10 of the 11 seats in Chhattisgarh.

Despite the regional victory, the BJP faced setbacks nationally, particularly in states like Uttar Pradesh, where the electorate apparently pushed back against the party’s Hindutva ideology— a nationalist movement criticised for marginalising religious minorities and diverting attention from governance issues.