A poor Hindu vegetable vendor was brutally thrashed by a Muslim mob, allegedly because they ‘suspected him to be a thief’, in Rajasthan’s Alwar district. Chiranji Lal Saini (50) suffered such severe injuries that he died a day later in hospital, as the rest of the nation was celebrating Independence Day.

As per the FIR lodged by his son Yogesh, Chiranji Lal had gone to the fields to relieve himself around 4.30 AM on August 14. Suddenly, a tractor (stolen as per the India Today report) was driven into the field, and right behind it was a Scorpio SUV and a pick-up truck containing the tractor’s owner Vikram Khan (son of Jumme Khan) and 15-20 of his men.

These men were armed with lathis and iron rods. They started assaulting Chiranji Lal. Hearing his cries, Yogesh and his uncles rushed to his aid and seeing them approach Khan and his men left. Soon after, the police arrived and took away the tractor, says the complaint (see below). Yogsh and his family members rushed Chiranji Lal to a nearby hospital from where he was referred to Alwar, and from there to Jaipur. But he did not survive and passed away in the Jaipur hospital on August 15.

The incident happened in Rambas village of Alwar district under Govindgarh police station limits. The India Today report says, “At a time when the victim was in the field, thieves after stealing a tractor were coming from the Sadar police station area and were being chased by police officials and the owner of the vehicle. Upon seeing the police officers and owner,the thieves left the tractor in the field and when the owner arrived, he misunderstood Chiranji Lal as the thief and started thrashing him”.

Interestingly, India Today states that “cops rushed him (Chiranji Lal) to the hospital”, but the complaint lodged by Yogesh says that cops left with the tractor and the family members took the victim to hospital. Apathy of our secular state’s police, steeped in colonial-era mai-baap attitudes, toward victims is an unfortunate reality.

The incident sparked tension in the area and angry protestors surrounded the Govindgarh police station, demanding the arrest of the accused. The protesting villagers have said that Chiranji Lal Saini’s body will not be cremated till all the accused in the case have been nabbed. The protestors also demanded a compensation of Rs 50 lakh and a job.

“Yogesh, son of Chiranji Lal Saini, lodged a complaint at the police station regarding the lynching of his father. The victim had sustained grievous injuries and was taken to a hospital where he died. Police have launched an investigation into the matter,”Shyamlal Meena, ASI Govindgarh Police Station said.

Netizens on social media were spot on in observing how this brutal crime has gone literally unnoticed in national discourse. They contrasted the muted coverage of Chiranji Lal’s lynching with the national and international uproar over deaths of Muslims like Akhlak (accused of butchering a calf), Pehlu Khan (accused of cattle smuggling) and Tabrez Ansari (caught red-handed while stealing a bike).

Out of the above-mentioned cases which went viral and were used to paint a false picture of ‘bigoted Hindus oppressing Muslims’, the case of Tabrez Ansari was particularly egregious. He was caught red-handed while stealing a bike by villagers in Jharkhand who thrashed him before handing him over to police. He appeared ok when first taken for a medical check-up by police but later his condition deteriorated and he died from a cardiac arrest while being treated in hospital.

Almost all mainstream English-language media outlets like India Today maintain to this day that Ansari was a ‘welder and laborer’ who had returned to his native village for Eid when he was ‘suspected of theft’ and assaulted. This is in stark contrast to how local media outlets uncovered facts and reported the same.

They found that Ansari had confessed to entering a house with intent to steal on the night he was caught. Based on his confession, stolen goods belonging to one Rajesh Pramanik were recovered from Ansari’s house. But Ansari was anointed a ‘morally-upstanding’ citizen and the poor villagers who, sick and tired of the state’s inability to protect them, took law into their own hands were branded as ‘Hindu fascists’.

Those who beat Ansari were mostly from OBC communities, but on that day they morphed into just ‘Hindu bigots’ for our left-liberals. We were flooded with images of Ansari’s grieving family, including his young wife. But when Hindus are lynched like the poor lassi-seller Bharat Yadav, murdered in Sri Krishna’s Mathura when he asked his Muslim customers to pay up, Ltueyns’ media buries the news with terse 2-column reports in the inside pages, if that. An earlier piece by HinduPost had examined these brazen double standards of national media when covering such crimes.

Chiranji Lal Saini belonged to an OBC Hindu community. He was murdered by a Muslim Meo, a powerful and crime-prone community in Mewat region which encompasses Haryana’s Nuh and other parts of neighboring districts like Alwar, Bharatpur in Rajasthan and Mathura in UP. But you can rest assured that none of the self-declared social justice/’Dalit’ activist groups like Bhim Army, Tribal Army or the secular outfits which claim to champion OBC upliftment like SP, RJD etc will come out to demand justice for Chiranji and his family. No one will shame the Ashok Gehlot led Congress government of Rajasthan or demand that the Congress first family condemn this brutality.

The harsh truth is that while the persecution of Hindus is brazen and done openly in Islamic nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh, the secular Republic of India and its polity is no less hostile to them in myriad insidious ways.