Faridabad cow vigilantes charged with mob lynching

The Faridabad police has invoked three sections, including mob lynching, of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in its chargesheet filed against the five cow vigilantes who allegedly shot dead a student, mistaking him for a cattle smuggler, the police said on Thursday.

On August 23, Aryan Mishra, 20, and his friends, Shanky and Harshit were in a car when the accused -- Saurabh, Anil Kaushik, Varun, Krishna and Adesh -- began following them on the Delhi-Agra National Highway as they had received information that some suspected cattle smugglers in two SUVs were doing recce in the city.

When the accused asked the victim to stop the car, the driver accelerated, following which they opened fire and Mishra was shot dead near the Gadhpuri toll in Palwal. All the accused were arrested on August 28.

Talking to PTI, ACP (crime) Aman Yadav said the crime branch filed the 600-page chargesheet with the statements of around 30 witnesses, including Mishra's co-passengers, before a judicial magistrate's court in Faridabad two days ago.

The accused were booked under Section 103(1) (murder) of the BNS in the FIR. However, in the chargesheet, the section was replaced with BNS Section 103(2), which species punishment when a group of five or more people commit a murder on the grounds of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other similar ground.

Each member of such a group shall be punished with death or with imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine, he added.

The Indian Penal Code (IPC), which was replaced by the BNS on July 1, did not have a specific provision for mob lynching.

The Faridabad police also added two more offences -- BNS Section 61(24) for criminal conspiracy, and 238 (2) for intentionally concealing evidence. The other sections of unlawful assembly and rioting with deadly weapons along with provisions of the Arms Act were retained in the chargesheet, said the police.