Two more held for thrashing elderly Muslim man, police deny communal angle

Two more men were arrested for thrashing and chopping the beard of an elderly Muslim man who also claimed that they asked him to chant "Jai Shri Ram".

Police however ruled out any communal angle saying Sufi Abdul Samad was attacked by six men - Hindus and Muslims - who were unhappy over the amulets he had sold them.

The arrested youth have been identified as Kalloo and Adil. Apart from them, Polly, Arif, Mushahid and Parvesh Gurjar were also involved in the incident, Senior Superintendent of Police Amit Pathak said.

The Ghaziabad police had earlier arrested Gurjar, who owns the house where the alleged incident took place.

An FIR was lodged two days after the incident which took place on June 5 under IPC section 342, section 323, section 504, section 506.

In his complaint, Samad did not mention that his beard was cut and he was compelled to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'.

Police is raiding the possible hideouts of other accused and they will be nabbed soon, Superintendent of Police rural Iraj Raja said.

Samad also practised occultism and had sold some amulet to Gurjar, purportedly to free one of his family members from some "evil effect" but a dispute arose between the two as there was no desired result of the amulet, he said.

The purported video which went viral on social media shows four men beating Samad up, chopping his beard and asking him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” in the Loni area of Ghaziabad.

Showing his injuries in the video, Samad has said he was abducted from Gokulpuri area when he took an auto for Loni in Ghaziabad. The autorickshaw already had two people in it when he hired it while two more boarded it a little distance ahead, said Samad in the video, adding the four suddenly pounced upon him inside the auto, covered his head with a piece of cloth and began beating him up. "They eventually drove me to a secluded house in a field in Behta Hazipur village of Loni where they further beat me up while asking me to chant Jai Shri Ram," alleged Samad in the video. "Every time I cried in pain and uttered Allah they beat me up again asking me to chant Jai Shri Ram instead," said Samad. "They even chopped my beard, calling me a Pakistani spy," he said.