Pehlu Khan mob lynching case: SIT to submit report

Jaipur: The special investigation team (SIT) formed to re-investigate the Pehlu Khan mob lynching case will submit its report to the police headquarters soon. The report has been prepared and according to preliminary reports, it has found some glaring negligence in the probe of the case that hogged headlines recently when the court acquitted all the six accused giving them the benefit of doubt.

In the SIT probe, it came up that the video of the incident shot with a mobile phone was not produced in the court as evidence. The video had gone viral on social media and the police team that probed the incident had in fact recovered the mobile phone but it was not entered as evidence to be produced before the court during the trial.

The case was registered almost 16 hours after the statements of the victim – Pehlu Khan – were recorded. Another discripency found in the police investigation was that the people indentified in the FIR were not made as an accused. The police arrested other men for the crime.

On April 1, 2017, Pehlu Khan with his two sons – Umar and Tahir – was on his way to their native place in Haryana from Jaipur with cows that they had allegedly bought in Jaipur. Some cow vigilantes intercepted their vehicle near Behror on National Highway 8 and started beating them up accusing them of cow smuggling. Pehlu Khan was seriously injured and died while undergoing treatment. On August 14, a court in Alwar acquitted all the accused.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot ordered the state police to form an SIT to re-investigate the case. There were allegations of mishandling evidence. Gehlot had said that the case was investigated when the BJP was in power in the state. So it would be reinvestigated to find loopholes in the previous probe.