Hyderabad: Meerpet police arrested seven persons for instigating a major clash between cow vigilantes (gau rakshaks) and cattle transporters late on Tuesday night in the Karmanghat Hanuman temple area, Saroornagar. Tension gripped the area when one group chased the other inside the shrine and attacked them with iron rods.
Officials seized the vehicle used to transport the cattle, five of them, a bike and six iron rods from the spot.
Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that the incident following a heated altercation took place near Meerpet TKR Kaman and the shrine in Karmanghat area on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.
The arrested included Mohammad Yousuf, 50, Mohammad Nissar, 19, Mohammad Nawaz, 23, Mohammad Ghouse, 23, Mohammad Ayub, 21, Mohammad Mosin Kamal, 35 and their driver Soudamoni Lingamaiah, 26.
“Yousuf and his son Nissar run a beef shop at Bhavaninagar. On Tuesday, around 9 am, they went to the Mall Crossroads in Nalgonda and purchased two oxen and three calves and engaged a vehicle (TS 07 UE 5570) and hired Lingamaiah as the driver. At about 7.30 pm when they reached Gayatrinagar of Meerpet, Koti Mayuresh, 21, a BCom student who resides at Arya Samaj in Goshamahal, requested them to stop their vehicle but they refused. Mayuresh and his friends followed the car in their SUV and made them stop to question them,” said the official.
The two groups got into an argument and started hurling abuses following which Mayuresh and his friends were attacked with iron rods by the accused.
Lingamaiah sustained a head injury. Mayuresh and others ran to a nearby shrine for shelter. “The accused chased them into the premises of the temple and attacked them, outraging the religious feelings of the group and left them with bleeding injuries,” added the official.
Based on a complaint from Mayuresh, cases were booked under sections 307, 295(A), 153(A), 427, 341, 147, 148 read/with 149 of the IPC and sections 11, 38 (3) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
The seven accused were sent to judicial remand in Cherlapally Jail. The seized animals were handed over to Yuga Tulasi Foundation at Abdullapurmet for safe custody.
