Mumbai: Three months after 20-year-old Suleman Pathan was lynched in Jamner, Maharashtra, a local court granted bail to four of the main accused—not for want of evidence, but because police in the northern town of Jamner failed to file the chargesheet within 90 days, as the law requires.
Among those accused were Pathan’s close friends from his village and men associated with Hindu extremist outfit Shiv Pratisthan Hindusthan—the same organisation whose annual Dussehra march in Jamner on 1 October this year was led by some of the police officials part of the investigating team probing the lynching, including the original investigation officer, Murlidhar Kasar.
Thousands of Shiv Pratisthan members marched through the streets of Jamner with tridents, swords and lathis. In some videos of the event, processionists break into Islamophobic slogans. One of them: Durga ban tu Kali ban, kabhi na burkhe wali ban (Become Durga, or Kali, but never become a Muslim woman).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had once called Shiv Pratisthan’s founder, Manohar Bhide, “param aadarniya guru”—prime respected guru. Bhide has long been close to senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena figures, including Maharashtra’s chief minister and deputy chief minister.
On 11 August 2025, Pathan was attacked by a group of Hindu men for sitting in a café with an underage Hindu girl. Members of the mob, which included Pathan’s own friends, are linked to the Shiv Pratisthan.
The attack unfolded over five hours, Pathan was abducted, beaten, stripped and lynched. He died that evening.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.
