By Waquar Hasan
NEW DELHI – A 55-year-old Muslim truck driver, Azad Khan, was allegedly assaulted and abused with religious slurs by a group of men while transporting pipes from Rajasthan to Pune on December 5.
A camera installed inside the truck recorded the incident, showing several men hurling religious abuses at Khan, who was wearing a skull cap. In the video, one of the men can be heard saying, “I will slap you. You are equal to my father, O Mullah. Are you a Mullah?” Khan is seen requesting them to spare him, stating that he is an elderly man. Despite this, the men forced him to stop the truck, snatched the keys, and ordered him to get down.
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In a video statement, Khan said he had slowed down after noticing a tractor parked on the roadside and then proceeded ahead. “Suddenly, some goons came in a car and stopped their vehicle in front of my truck,” he said.
“I thought they might be asking for directions. When I asked what the issue was, they started abusing me, calling me ‘Mulla,’ and accused me of hitting their car with my truck,” Khan said. “I asked them to show me where I had hit their car. Instead, they entered my vehicle and beat me.”
Khan alleged that the attackers dragged him out of the truck, forced him into their car, and took him to a nearby jungle, where he was brutally assaulted. “They did very bad things to me there. My ear was full of blood. They beat me severely and demanded one lakh rupees,” he said. “I told them I am a poor man and cannot give such money.”
According to Khan, the attackers forced him to call the truck owner and demand the money, falsely claiming that the headlight of their car had been damaged. “Nothing was damaged. I said this out of fear,” he said. When the owner asked for a video of the alleged damage, Khan sent one, and no damage was visible. The owner then told Khan that he was sending a person to the location.
“They took me to the jungle and threatened to throw me into a pond,” Khan said. “I was reciting the Kalma and praying that Allah may save me. I kept saying I had done nothing wrong. They were doing injustice to me. They assaulted me so badly that my ear was bleeding.”
This story was originally published in thehindustangazette.com. Read the full story here.