On August 11, Suleman Rahim Khan Pathan, was allegedly paraded and beaten to death by a mob after they found him seated in a cafe in Jamner with a 17-year-old girl from another faith. (Express Photo)
Four days after a 21-year-old man was allegedly beaten to death by a mob of 10 to 12 people, Jamner town in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra remains tense but peaceful. The police have set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the murder and arrested eight youths so far.
On August 11, Suleman Rahim Khan Pathan, was allegedly paraded and beaten to death by a mob after they found him seated in a cafe in Jamner with a 17-year-old girl from another faith. They allegedly thrashed him in and outside the cafe, took him to his village, Betawad Khurd, some 25 kilometres from Jamner town, and beat him up again, leading to his death.
Suleman’s maternal uncle Kalim Shaikh said, “Suleman was beaten up for hours by the mob. His parents and sister were also beaten up. Without any provocation, the mob beat up Suleman. He had come to Jamner to fill out the form for police recruitment. He was sitting in the cafe with some friends. We don’t know why they beat him up.”
Story continues below this ad
Sabir Khan, another relative, said, “Suleman was sitting in the cafe with friends. If the mob thought there was something objectionable happening, they could have taken them to the police station, which was next door. We urge Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to slap the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) on the accused, as it was done in the Beed case.” He was referring to the murder of Santosh Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed district last year.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Jalgaon District Collector Ayush Prasad said, “The incident was very unfortunate. First, the mob attacked him in the cafe in Jamner and then took him to the Betawad village. He was again beaten up in front of his parents. He suffered injuries. The mob then left the village.”
“Suleman’s parents then took him to their house, where he sipped some water after and fell unconscious. His parents then rushed him to a hospital but he was declared brought dead by doctors,” Prasad added.
Following his death, a large crowd gathered at the hospital and the police station. They refused to take custody of the body until the suspects were arrested.
Story continues below this ad
The district collector, who is also the executive magistrate, said the death created tense moments as a mob of 500 people gathered at the police station demanding action.
“The police swung into action and immediately arrested two people the same day after registering an FIR. Immediately after the police took action, back-channel communication was maintained with leaders of all communities to ensure continued peace. There was no lathi charge or use of force to ensure peace. An inquest of the body was conducted immediately, and a post-mortem was done the next morning at the government medical college. Around 300 people were present during the burial,” said Prasad.
Prasad said it has become clear that those in the mob were all youths. “It appears that they are not affiliated with any right-wing organisations, as these organisations have denied any connections to the mob.”
Prasad said an additional superintendent of police will lead the SIT investigating the case.
Story continues below this ad
Jalgaon Superintendent of Police Maheshwar Reddy said, “We have slapped murder and lynching charges in the case.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
4 min read
