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Journalism of Courage
The souls of the five Dalits who were lynched here on October 15 can now rest easy: perhaps this is the message from the police and the local administration.
For, the post mortem report of the cow has just come in and it shows that the cow died the night before.
In other words, the lynch mob’s fig leaf of ‘‘justification’’ is gone. But the wheels of justice grind slow. The cow’s viscera has now been sent to the Forensic Science Lab at Madhuban. To find out ‘‘how’’ the animal died—whether it was a ‘‘natural’’ death or whether it was ‘‘poisoned.’’
For those who watched the killing, the post mortem report means little. Prominent among the eyewitnesses that day was Swami Parmanand Giri from the Arya Samaj Ashram. Justifying the killing, he had said: ‘‘I had seen it with my own eyes, the cow had life in it.’’
Today, reacting to the post mortem report, he said: ‘‘Now the administration can say whatever they want. We stick by what we had said earlier.’’
The VHP and the Arya Samaj Ashram have called a Mahapanchayat of 180 Gaushala Sabhas to protest against this ‘‘eyewash’’ by the government. According to the post mortem report, a copy of which is with The Sunday Express, ‘‘liver, spleen, intestines have been preserved in formalin and normal saline and handed over to the police for forensic examination.’’
For Resham Singh, Inspector General of Police, Rohtak Division, it’s taken more than 10 days to realise the mistake. ‘‘The case of cow slaughter is now over with all the accused dead,’’ he said.
When asked why the viscera was being sent for further examination, he declined to comment.
