The Wire reviewed seven FIRs filed in 2022 across various police stations in Mathura, including Kotwali, Highway, Sadar Bazaar, and Govind Nagar. It found that these FIRs were mere copies of each other with names and dates changed.
Lalit Chauhan, a Mathura-based Congress leader, said that he fails to find any logic in the way this law is being used in the state. Chauhan said that the law is purely being deployed to harass and jail Muslims to the extent of ruining their existence as a community.
Commenting on the FIRs, he said, “Just take a cursory look at the FIRs. The police are grossly misusing this law against Muslims and Dalits across Uttar Pradesh, not just Mathura. Knowing well that Muslims are a meat-eating community, they target them. Without even confirming whether the ‘caught meat’ was at all of the cow, they jail Muslims. Procedurally, they need to assess the meat sample in a lab, only then can they pronounce a jail term,” he explained.
04/09/2023