New Delhi: Almost six years after Muslim goat-trader Qasim was lynched by a mob of Hindu men in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Hapur on fabricated rumours of cow slaughter, a local court on Tuesday (March 12) convicted ten persons for the brutal murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment, lawyers said.Qasim, 45, was among the most prominent victims of state-induced hate crimes in the name of cow slaughter in UP after the infamous Dadri incident in 2015, when a Muslim man named Mohammad Akhlaque was beaten to death over rumours of killing a cow.Qasim was beaten to death near the fields of Bajhera Khurd village under the Pilkhuwa police station in Hapur on June 16, 2018, a year after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power in the state and provided moral backing to violent cow protectionism and vigilantism.In fact, one of the main accused in the Hapur lynching had even bragged about his role after he was released from jail on bail.The victims’ families insisted that the allegations of cow slaughter were fabricated.While a detailed court judgment is still awaited, lawyers associated with the case said that ten accused persons were convicted for the crime, which had also left a Muslim farmer named Samaydeen badly injured.The village where the crime took place. Photo: Omar Rashid.Additional district and sessions judge Shweta Dixit convicted all ten accused persons for murder, attempt to murder, rioting with a deadly weapon and promoting enmity between groups on the basis of religion, etc, said lawyer Vrinda Grover, who along with her team fought the legal battle for the victims.The accused persons were convicted under sections 302, 307, 147, 148, 149 and 153a of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were also fined Rs 58,000 each, Grover said.Yasin, Samaydeen’s brother and the complainant in the case, told The Wire that he was happy with the court’s verdict even though it took many years to come.“We are happy with the court’s decision. We have got justice,” Yasin, who is a wage labourer, said.He said his family had to sell between 200 and 300 yards of land to sustain the long and arduous legal battle.“I am a mazdoor [Hindi for labourer]. We have only three or four bighas of land. To attend the court hearings, I had to leave aside my work for the day. We had to face a lot of trouble to fight this, but by god’s grace, we have got justice,” said Yasin.Qasim earned a living by selling goats in local markets and villages.Samaydeen, who was in his farm gathering fodder for cattle, witnessed the mob chase Qasim towards his field.Samaydeen survived the assault. Photo: Omar Rashid.Qasim was mercilessly assaulted by the mob while Samaydeen was also thrashed when he tried to intervene.Samaydeen, a resident of Madapur-Mustafabad village, was also subjected to communal slurs and accused of cow slaughter by the marauding mob.He was hit with lathis, kicks and punches and spent many days in hospital recovering from a cracked head, fractures in both arms and a leg, injured ribs, ruptured ears and multiple abrasions.Samaydeen survived, but Qasim succumbed to his injuries.The incident had also brought widespread condemnation for the state police, not just for the crime but also for the way in which three policemen were in a photograph seen leading a mob as they dragged away the bloodied body of Qasim, probably still alive, soon after the incident.The state police issued an apology for the conduct of its personnel – an inspector and two constables – but clarified that Qasim was dragged on the ground “because of the non-availability of an ambulance at that moment” and that he was later rushed to a hospital in an emergency van.While the media had reported that the two men were assaulted over allegations of cow slaughter, Samaydeen and Qasim’s family had maintained that the mob had falsely accused them of cow slaughter.The state police had also come under a lot of fire for initially dismissing the murder as the result of a scuffle between two sides over a motorbike collision.Members of Qasim’s family. Photo: Omar Rashid.However, after Samaydeen approached the Supreme Court with a writ petition, the court ordered that the investigation in the case be supervised by a senior IPS officer – Meerut’s inspector-general – and that his statement be recorded.The victim’s family was also provided police protection.Yasin says the rumours of cow slaughter were “absolutely false”.“There were several videos of the incident. Not one showed a cow,” he said.“The court has held that killing someone in the name of cow slaughter is wrong by law.”Qasim is survived by his wife and four children.
