Gurugram: Two years after the brutal murder of Nasir and Junaid by cow vigilantes, one of the 21 accused in the police chargesheet, Lokesh Singla, allegedly took his life by jumping in front of a train in Haryana’s Palwal district Monday.
A purported last video of Singla is circulating on social media in which he names three persons and accuses them of harassing him—Bajrang Dal’s state convener Bharat Bhushan, one Anil Kaushik and Harkesh Yadav. He alleges prolonged harassment by the trio, various threats by goons, including framing him in false cases, and asks for action against them.
The man in the video identifies himself as Lokesh Singla, resident of Bichhor village, and says: “I am going to take my life today…fed up of daily threats from three persons… they send new goons every day… they follow me…they say they will frame me in court cases… and do this and that to me. So, I am going to take my life. In this, Bajrang Dal’s state convener from Hathin, Bharat Bhushan, Anil Kaushik from Hathin and Harkesh Yadav… action should be taken against all of them. That’s all I want from the administration.”
The Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, is known for its aggressive “gau raksha” (cow protection) activities in Haryana.
The Government Railway Police (GRP) in Faridabad have initiated a probe in the alleged suicide case, and are proceeding to register a case against the three accused based on a complaint from Singla’s family.
Raj Pal, Station House Officer (SHO) of GRP Faridabad, told ThePrint Tuesday that the police received from Singla’s family a written complaint and evidence in the form of the video made by him before his death.
“A post-mortem has been conducted and we have handed over the body to the family. An FIR for abetment of suicide is being registered under relevant sections. We will take appropriate action after verifying the allegations in the video,” Pal said.
Singla, a resident of Bichhor village in the state’s Nuh district, was married and is a father of three. He was one of 21 accused named in a chargesheet filed by the Rajasthan Police in Kaman district court in May 2023 for abduction, assault and burning of Nasir and Junaid, two men from Bharatpur, Rajasthan, in February 2023. The case had drawn national outrage.
Rajasthan Police sources familiar with the investigation had earlier told ThePrint that the duo was assaulted by two groups of gau rakshaks and tortured for several hours to extract information about sources of cattle and their trafficking operations. The charred bodies of Nasir and Junaid were later found in a vehicle on the Rajasthan-Haryana border.
The other accused in the police chargesheet included prominent Bajrang Dal member Monu Manesar, Rinku Saini, Shrikant, and Azad Acharya Arya. The document detailed how the victims were “severely assaulted”, taken to a Haryana police station where they were “turned away”, and subsequently burnt in a car. Rinku Saini was arrested by the Rajasthan Police soon after, while Manesar was taken into custody in September 2023.
According to police records, Singla had been absconding since the chargesheet was filed.
The police investigation was also reported to have found that Singla, along with others like Rinku Saini and Shrikant, acted as informer in at least four FIRs lodged in Haryana’s Nuh district against alleged cow smugglers in the months leading up to the February 2023 killing of Nasir and Junaid. Singla is also said to have been linked with the Bajrang Dal.
Anil Kaushik, one of the individuals named in the purported video of Singla, is the main accused in the 2024 murder of Aryan Mishra, a Class 12 student who was mistaken for a cow smuggler.
When Mishra’s father visited Kaushik in jail, he said he thought the boy was Muslim and he regretted killing a Brahmin. Kaushik is known locally as the Monu Manesar of Faridabad.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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