By NL Team

Monu Yadav, alias Monu Manesar, the self-styled cow vigilante and Bajrang Dal leader, appeared in an Instagram video on October 9 warning protesters against attacking police personnel at the CJP protest scheduled for October 10.

In the 2:15-minute clip, Monu Manesar said he was angry over violent protesters. 

“Our police personnel are being beaten up, our lady police officers are being treated inappropriately,” he said. “Me and my entire team are against it.”

He then threatened anyone found to have attacked police. “If we find someone from the videos we saw, if they end up in front of us, they better save themselves because we can’t be held responsible for what we will do, Jai Shree Ram,” he said. 

Towards the end of the clip, he added: “Our teams are ready. Our teams are active and we will deactivate you, so take care.”

The video was posted on the verified Instagram profile “mohitthehindu052”, which has 1,54,000 followers. It had garnered over 1,33,000 views within 24 hours.

Speaking to Newslaundry from Gurugram, Monu Manesar said his team would be present at Jantar Mantar on October 10 and “we will not tolerate any wrongdoing against our country, our culture and our police personnel.” 

Asked about police violence against protesters, he said he had heard of it but had not seen video evidence of police touching protesters. 

“They may be cockroaches but we are HIT,” he said referring to the commonly used insecticide brand. 

Monu Manesar has been part of the Bajrang Dal for nearly a decade. Before his arrest, he regularly posted videos on social media documenting cow-vigilante activity, including raids and confrontations with people suspected of transporting cattle for slaughter.

His activities came against the backdrop of tighter cow protection laws in Haryana. In 2019, the state added stricter provisions to the anti-cow slaughter law that the BJP government had passed in 2015. Between 2019 and 2022, nearly 600 FIRs were filed under the law in Nuh, a Muslim-majority region of Haryana. Many families in the region pointed to harassment by cow vigilantes.

In February 2023, the charred bodies of two men, Junaid (35) and Nasir (28), were found in a burnt car in Loharu, in Haryana’s Bhiwani district. The families of both men told Newslaundry that the two had been abducted and burnt alive by six members of Haryana’s Bajrang Dal unit, including Manesar, who remained on the run for over five months. 

This story was originally published in newslaundry.com. Read the full story here.