The radical Hindutva links of the men arrested for lynching a Muslim man in Maharashtra

On August 11, Suleman Rahim Khan Pathan was sitting with a Hindu woman in a cafe in Maharashtra's Jamner town when a group of men forced him to go along with them.

The 21-year-old was driven around in a van and brutally assaulted before finally being dropped off at a bus stand in his village. Khan died of his injuries.

Eight men who were allegedly part of the mob that killed him have been arrested for the crime. At least four of them were involved with radical Hindutva groups, Scroll found by tracking their social media presence. Residents alleged that four others were members of the Bajrang Dal.

According to the police, of the eight accused, four men – Aaditya Devre, Krushna Teli, Sojwal Teli, and Rishikesh Teli – were from nearby villages. Murlidhar Kasar, investigating officer in the case, told Scroll that they led the mob and assaulted Khan and his family.

Scroll's analysis of their social media accounts showed that the four were active members of Shri Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan, an organisation formed by the Hindutva hardliner Sambhaji Manohar Bhide, who was formerly associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In December 2022, Dalit groups and political activists had accused Bhide of instigating violence in Bhima Koregaon village through provocative speeches.

A senior leader of Shiv Pratishthan, Anant Karmuse, told Scroll that he had no information to share about the links of the accused men to his organisation.

However, Nitin Chougule, a former senior leader of the organisation who is associated with an allied organisation, said the four accused “did not intend to kill” Khan.

“They were only protecting the girls of the community,” he said.

Also in the mob were four young men who lived in Khan's village, Betawad – and who, Khan's father and sister alleged, were members of the local unit of the Bajrang Dal. “Suleman was friendly with them,” his sister Muskaan told Scroll.

Last year, the four men and Suleman Khan were part of the team organising Ganesh Chaturthi festivals in the village. “Suleman worked with all four in the Ganpati mandal last year,” a resident said on condition of anonymity.

Vivek Kulkarni, a senior leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, did not confirm or deny that the four men from Betawad were members of the organisation. He said they “do not hold any official position in Bajrang Dal”.

Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. “We should not focus on who did it and which organisation they belong to,” Kulkarni said. “We should focus on the love jihad matter here.”

Love jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that claims that Muslim men entrap Hindu women in romantic relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam.

In a letter to the Jalgaon police, Khan's family also accused a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyayarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, of having played a leading role in the attack. The RSS is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

“But the police are yet to arrest him,” Rahim Khan, Suleman Khan's father, told Scroll. “We told the police that he assaulted our son in front of us. He threatened us and hit me too.”

The investigation officer, Kasar, said the police had “not yet looked into the affiliations of the accused”.

Jalgaon superintendent Maheshwar Reddy did not respond to repeated calls and messages from Scroll.

Suleman Khan had gone to Jamner to fill a police recruitment form on the day he was killed, a relative named Abdullah Pathan said.

That afternoon, he met a Hindu woman at Brand Cafe in Jamner, when the group of men barged in.

According to the remand application submitted by police in court on August 18 and accessed by Scroll, CCTV footage showed the men leading Khan away from the cafe.

Aaditya Devre, the Shiv Pratishthan member, and another man, Shivaji Ashok Mali, first took Khan away on a bike, the police said in the remand application.

Later, they forced him into a van, in which they drove him around. The vehicle, a Maruti Eeco, was found with another man of the organisation, Krushna Teli. Khan's phone was recovered from a third member of the organisation, Sojwal Teli, according to the remand application.

Khan was taken to a spot near the Sonbardi temple in Jamner and assaulted. He was then driven to Bada Betawad, the village where the woman lives, and beaten up again.

Devre was among those who drove around with Khan, the police said in its remand application.

Khan was finally brought to his own village, Chhota Betawad, and assaulted at the village bus stand, according to his family and the police. The mob warned villagers against helping him and left him severely injured on the road.

Khan's family rushed him on a bike to the nearest hospital and then to the civil hospital. “He died on the way,” Suleman's cousin Shahrukh Pathan said.

After his arrest, Sojwal told the police the spot where the men had thrown Khan's SIM card, along with a stick and an iron rod they used to assault him, the remand application stated. He helped the police recover torn bits of the clothes Khan was wearing – a light-blue T-shirt and jeans.

The police said that all eight accused were in touch with each other over phone during the crime.

Sojwal has a YouTube page and a Facebook profile in which he often posts messages about meetings of Shiv Pratishthan members in Jamner. He lives in Waki village, a few kilometres from Betawad. He earns his living by renting out heavy equipment used in construction work.

In several posts on his Facebook page, he can be seen with Shiv Pratishtan founder Bhide.

On his Instagram page, Rishikesh Teli, who lives in the same village, regularly posts reels and videos of meetings of Pratishthan members in Jamner. Several of these videos have teenage boys in attendance.

Krushna Teli, also a resident of Waki, is a regular at these meetings.

“It was a premeditated plan to corner Suleman,” said Javed Mullah, a former corporator in Jalgaon, adding that all the accused managed to travel from different villages to Jamner surprisingly quickly to corner Khan.

In the mob were four men who Suleman Khan knew because they lived in his village – Abhishek Rajkumar Rajput, Suraj Bihari Lal Sharma, Deepak Bajirao Ghisadi and Ranjit Ramkrishna Matade. The four were arrested on August 12 after being identified by Khan's family.

Khan's sister Muskan said, “They were not enemies and there was never a quarrel between them. My brother was friendly with them.”

Both Rajput and Sharma are farmers. Matade owns a five-seater van that he uses to ply passengers between Jamner and Bodwad. Ghisadi moved to Betawad a few years ago to work as a driver.

Abdullah Pathan, Khan's relative, said some of the men called themselves gau rakshaks or cow protectors.

Residents of Jamner said both the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Pratishthan have been organising Hindu Sakal Samaj rallies and Hindutva rallies in Jalgaon over the last couple of years.

These rallies, as Scroll has reported, urged Hindus to isolate the Muslim community economically and socially and raised the alarm over what they claim are the growing number of relationships between Muslim men and Hindu women.

On August 15, several social activists met Jalgaon guardian minister Gulabrao Patil to demand a fair investigation into Khan's murder. Karim Salar, an activist, said they have “demanded that the government ban Shiv Pratishthan”. Farukh Shaikh, another activist, claimed that in recent years “several young Hindu boys were getting fascinated by Sambhaji Bhide” and joining him.

“This is affecting the social fabric of Jalgaon,” he said.

So far, the police have arrested the eight accused on charges of murder, abduction, rioting, criminal intimidation and breach of peace.

But Khan's family say the investigation into his murder has been derailed. No more arrests have been made and that the victim was being defamed in death, they alleged

For instance, Vivek Kulkarni, the senior leader in Vishwa Hindu Parishad, alleged that Khan was involved in trapping Hindu women. “The boy had nude photos of Hindu girls on his phone,” Kulkarni claimed.

Chougule, the former senior leader of Shiv Pratisthan, made similar accusations. “[He] was locally known to be involved with several girls,” he claimed. “These boys secretly film girls, then threaten and rape them later.” Chougule said that the Shiv Pratishthan members came to know about him and decided to “intervene”.

He, however, could not provide the names any women who had complained about being blackmailed by Khan.

Khan's family alleged that the police are under pressure to not act against the ABVP member they claim was also involved in the murder. However, investigating officer Kasar said they are yet to find any evidence against the man. “We are looking at call data records,” he said. “We cannot arrest on the basis of what the family tells us. We need more evidence.”

Complained Khan's father Rahim Khan, “The police are focused more on cafes and their demolition. They are not making any effort in arresting the culprits.”

He was referring to the fact that the Jalgaon administration has demolished half a dozen cafes in Jamner after the murder.

Source: Scroll
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