By Jehangir Ali
Srinagar: Thousands of protesters disrupted traffic on the national highway in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday (April 13) after a local man went missing the previous day while trying to escape suspected cow protectors as they attacked him. Ruling National Conference, opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Congress party and others as well as Ramban locals say ‘gau rakshaks’ (cow protectors) were involved in the attack.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ramban Arun Gupta said that the police received information at around 1:30 pm on Sunday (April 12) that a youngster named Tanveer Ahmad Chopan had jumped into Bishlari, a tributary of the Chenab River, near Magarkote. The SSP said some people saw Chopan, who had been driving home from Jammu in a mini-truck carrying a cow and two calves, jump into the river.
A case (FIR No. 26/2026) has been filed at Ramsoo Police Station and four persons identified as Surjeet Singh, Sandeep Singh, Digvijay Singh and Keval Singh, all residents of Ramban, have been arrested. Gupta said that the circumstances under which Chopan plunged into the stream were a “matter of investigation”. “We have collected CCTV footage to assess whether he was being chased by other vehicles,” he said.
It was not immediately clear which sections the accused have been charged under and whether they are affiliated with Hindu right wing outfits. The police have not shared the details of the FIR.
Unhappy with the police action, thousands of Ramban residents, including women and children, swarmed National Highway No. 44 near Magarkote, disrupting traffic on the road that links Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region. The protesters alleged that Hindu right-wing outfits have carried out other attacks on Muslims in the area in the recent past, and that the groups accuse them of slaughtering cows.
They demanded that the police should share a copy of its FIR with Chopan’s family and sought a transparent investigation into the incident.
Chopan is a resident of Mundkhal village in the Pogal area, also in Ramban and his father is a special police officer.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
