Cow smugglers’ van in Haryana set ablaze

Rewari (Haryana): Irate villagers set a pick-up van ablaze after police party intercepted four alleged cow smugglers, police said on Tuesday. Police attempted to intercept the vehicle, in which four cow smugglers were allegedly smuggling calves in a pick-up van to the Mewat area in Haryana for butchery in the early hours today.

On seeing the police the driver of the van tried to escape but was stopped by the barricades which had been put up by the Dharuhera police on the Kapriwas-Gujjar Ghatal road.

The cow smugglers pelted stones and also resorted to firing at the police. However, the villagers caught hold of two of the cow smugglers, subsequently identified as Aarif and Sayyad, both residents of different villages of the Taoru area of Mewat.

Both accused were thrashed by the villagers while the remaining two smugglers managed to escape under cover of darkness after abandoning the pick-up van there. The irate villagers also set the pick-up van ablaze.

While the police got both Aarif and Sayyad admitted to the civil hospital, a case has been registered against them of attempt to murder and the Arms Act against the cow smugglers as well as a case causing obstruction against unknown villagers.