On the night of October 2, two men were beaten to death and four others left unconscious near Naxalbari in Darjeeling district, after a crowd of several hundred people was told that cattle smugglers had entered the area.The dead were Shahid Akhtar, 37, of Sonapur in Chopra, Uttar Dinajpur, and Saad Mohammad, 42, from Haryana. Not one animal was found with any of them.Ten days after the killings, police had arrested three people, one of whom residents describe as a local known for substance abuse. Nobody has been charged with organising the mob, and no one has been held for burning one vehicle and smashing another. Eyewitness accounts, social media posts, police statements and the words of those involved point to a night that was far more organised than a spontaneous outburst, and to a string of questions that remain unanswered.Burn marks from a pickup van set on fire are still clearly visible on the banks of the Balason River. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar.Who knew in advance?Before daybreak on October 3, a Bajrang Dal worker from Bagdogra posted on social media that “a cattle-smuggling racket has been caught under surveillance by Bajrang Dal workers. The people are venting their anger on them.” The Bajrang Dal has issued no official statement and the post was later removed.Local businessman Nikhil Roy said he saw it when he opened his phone that morning. “The post was being circulated on behalf of the Bajrang Dal. It contained live footage of people being beaten to death. But half an hour later, neither the post nor the video was there,” he said. “Many people like me had watched the live broadcast, but the entire page was subsequently taken down.”How did hundreds gather at 2 am?Tarabari lies deep in the countryside beyond Bagdogra, under Matigara police station. On one side of the road is a military camp. On the other is a small settlement called Dumribari, and beyond it the Balason River.According to residents, the rumour began around midnight. A phone message said, “Cattle thieves have come from Dhimal village in a vehicle. Stop them on their way.” From about 2 am, several hundred people assembled at Tarabari crossing. Tractors were moved onto the road to block it.Screengrab from one of the video recordings of the incident. A pickup van carrying seven men, reportedly from Haryana and Bihar, was attacked and turned away. Some escaped. Others were caught, beaten unconscious and left on the riverbank. The van, which reportedly bore a Rajasthan registration number, was set on fire towards dawn. Ash, scorch marks and part of a burst tyre are still visible on the ground.Accounts of the first attack do not fully match. Most residents say four men were caught. Vijay Kumar Roy, an elderly resident, said three were caught and four hid. He said the van, finding the road blocked, turned towards the military camp.Roy and others also gave a different reason for the group’s presence. “A group of outsiders had arrived near Dhimal village around midnight. They were intoxicated and began quarrelling and shouting among themselves,” he said. “After hearing the noise, a rumour spread through the village that a gang of cattle thieves had entered the area.”Atul Roy of Nayabasti said much the same. “It is possible that some outsiders came to visit the area, drank alcohol at midnight and drove around. But people here believe they were cattle thieves.”That explanation leaves the rest of the night unaccounted for. Police have not said who kept hundreds of people awake and mobilised at 1 am, who placed the tractors across the road, or where the fuel used to burn the van came from.The second attackAbout two hours after the first assault, Akhtar and Mohammad arrived in another vehicle. Residents said they had come to tell locals the men being beaten were not cattle thieves.An eyewitness from Nayabasti, who repeatedly asked not to be named and was still trembling as he spoke, described what followed. “When these two arrived, the Bajrang Dal workers began celebrating. People started shouting that they had caught the chickens,” he said.“I saw one group smashing their vehicle and taking it away to dump it somewhere. Another group chased the two men into the forest. Later, I heard that both had been beaten to death. By then, the night was almost over.”Sushil Roy, an autorickshaw driver from nearby Matigara, said the violence continued into the morning. “Even at dawn, when people were being dragged out of the forest and beaten, many recorded videos of it,” he said.‘The entire incident is mysterious’Akhtar’s parents both hold senior posts in Sikkim’s electricity department, and he studied at an English-medium school. His widow, Razia Sultana, said he took up driving after failing to find a good job. He owned a pickup van and carried foodgrains and vegetables to the hills and Bhutan, usually leaving at night and returning by morning. Earlier, when cattle markets were running, he had also transported livestock.“Even if my husband had done something wrong, people could have handed him over to the police. He was not a thief, nor had he committed a crime such as murder. Then why was he beaten to death?” she asked.Razia Sultana holds a photograph of her deceased husband, Shahid Akhtar. Photo: Joydeep SarkarShe said the family did not know the men from Haryana and Bihar now said to have been with him, and that neither the burnt van nor the smashed vehicle belonged to him. “The entire incident is mysterious. And is it possible for just two or three criminals to carry out something on such a scale?”The livestream and the teacher’s accountParts of the assault were streamed live on Facebook from about 3 am. Residents said the stream drew people from neighbouring areas, who called one another and headed to Tarabari, before it was cut and the page shut down.Among those who drew attention for streaming was Vishal Rai, a teacher from Panighata whom residents describe as close to the Sangh. Rai told The Wire he had filmed and uploaded the footage, and deleted it a few hours later because it “created many problems.” He would not say what those were.His account of how he came to be there raises its own questions. Rai said a bleeding man ran into his village around midnight, panting and unable to say where the attack had happened. “We gave the injured man water and food and called the police. As a teacher, I am known in the area. The police arrived and took him away,” he said. Around 3.30 am, he said, he and others went to Tarabari. “When we reached there, the vehicle had not yet been set on fire. A few people were being badly beaten because they were suspected of being cattle thieves.”Panighata is about 16 km from Tarabari, along difficult roads, with several settlements in between. Rai’s timeline sits uneasily with residents’ accounts, which put the crowd’s gathering at Tarabari from about 2 am. He did not explain why an injured stranger from out of state would run that distance to his village, or how he himself learnt where the violence was happening.A resident who saw the stream said it showed the faces of those in the mob, and that Rai was pressured to take it down. Images posted by local Bajrang Dal workers celebrating the punishment of “jihadi thieves” were also deleted, residents said, apparently for fear they could be used to identify those involved.A third video, filmed around 7 am by a woman named Mistu Roy after the police arrived, shows officers leading away a bloodied man, accompanied by several men identified as known Sangh workers. A voice off camera asks, “Why did you let him go?”Senior police officers are reported to be aware of the livestream. Police have said nothing publicly about the videos or whether they have recovered them.What police are sayingAnirban Majumdar, ACP-2 of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate, said there were allegations of cattle smuggling against the dead men. “We will investigate the entire incident,” he said.Kalyan Kumar Saha, officer-in-charge of Bagdogra police station, said a forensic examination had been done. “The person named Khan was involved in cattle smuggling, although there were no cattle in their possession that day. However, we are investigating the matter further,” he said.Neither dead man is named Khan. Police have not said who Khan is or what record they hold against him.The political backdropNaxalbari has become an important base for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in North Bengal. Pravin Togadia and Mohan Bhagwat have visited the area several times over the years.Arun Mondal, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president for the Naxalbari assembly segment, called for a central agency probe. “Where have so many cattle disappeared from across Siliguri and the surrounding areas? Let the CCTV footage be examined. We believe a large racket is operating here. Because our workers became vigilant, this racket could be stopped,” he said.Local BJP MLA Anandamoy Barman, who residents say spends much of his time in Kolkata, did not respond to calls or messages and had not visited the area.Tractors flying saffron flags illegally transport sand and stones extracted from the Balason River. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar.The riverbankThe first attack happened on a stretch of the Balason where, residents say, tractors flying saffron flags extract sand and stone worth crores of rupees, allegedly without permits or transport papers. The material is piled on the bank, sieved and carried to market. Labourers working there, mostly from the Rajbanshi community, would not discuss the night.Rasu Singh, a labourer, said most people in the area are poor and live by collecting sand and stone. Few keep cattle or goats, he said, because the roads are poor and fodder is scarce. Some animals had been stolen a few days earlier, and people had been talking about who was responsible.“But I cannot understand why so many people came in vehicles to the riverbank in the middle of the night without entering the village. And how did such a large crowd gather at that hour and start beating them?” he said. “The incident was being broadcast live on Facebook. I don’t have a phone of my own. The next day, I saw…”He stopped mid-sentence and hurried away.