A 36-year-old Muslim cab driver was allegedly assaulted with hockey sticks by a violent mob in Uttar Pradesh due to his religious identity.
The incident occurred in Meerut’s Daurala town on January 28, Maktoob Media reported.
The cab driver Shamsher, hailing from Delhi’s Sultanpuri area, had picked up two passengers, a Hindu middle-aged couple, from Uttam Nagar. They were on their way to Dehradun.
During the trip, Shamsher encountered a white Fortuner car that the cab driver claims refused to give him the way. As a result, a verbal discord occurred between the two drivers, leading the Fortuner driver to stop the vehicle in front of Shamsher’s.
Beaten for an hour continuously
Three men emerged from the Fortuner car and demanded Shamsher’s Aadhaar card details. Upon knowing he was a Muslim, they started slapping and kicking him. They even banged his head against the car’s bonne, the report said.
“Tu musalman hai, Abhi btate hain tujhe (you are a Muslim, now we will teach you),” Shamsher was told.
“They made a phone call, and two men with hockey bats and wooden sticks arrived in less than two minutes. I was beaten for almost an hour and lost consciousness. By the time, they had escaped,” Shamsher said.
According to Shamsher, he made multiple calls to police stations but received no response. “I was unable to move or drive, so I called my relative to drop the couple back at their home,” he was quoted by Maktoob Media.
The heavily injured cab driver received treatment at a nursing home after a private hospital in Ghaziabad allegedly refused to admit him citing it was a police case.
No arrest yet
On January 31, an FIR was finally filed at the Daurala police station against “unknown individuals” under sections 506 (criminal intimidation) 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (insulting with an intent to provoke).
However, there have been no arrests so far.
We thought they will kill him, said passenger
The female passenger who was in Shamsher’s cab confirmed his version but was too scared to help. “We were terrified. It was horrifying to watch. At one moment, I feared they would kill him,” the female passenger said requesting anonymity.
She said that they had known Shamsher for a long time and were his regular customers. They described him as a calm, soft-spoken, and trustworthy person.
