Hindus are facing unprecedented persecution on both sides of the border. In another shocking incident of an Islamist assault on Hindus, 46-year-old Kishanlal Bheel was beaten to death over drawing of water from a tubewell in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur.

The three arrested accused – Shakeel, Nasir, and Bablu – also hurled casteist slurs at Kishanlal, who is from an ST (Scheduled Tribe) aka ‘Dalit’ community, and prevented his family from taking him to hospital. Police is looking for others involved in the incident which occurred on Sunday night in Bhomiyaji ki Ghati in Soorsagar area of Jodhpur.

It was only after police reached the spot that the seriously injured man was hospitalised where he succumbed to injuries.

Ashok, Kishanlal’s brother, said that some of the locals, including the three arrested, have taken control over the tubewell installed in the locality. They have also fitted a pump on it and do not let others to use it.

“On Sunday night, Kishanlal had gone to the tubewell for water but these people pushed him away and hurled casteist slurs at him,” Ashok said. Soon after Kishanlal returned home, Shakeel, Nasir, Bablu and others attacked his house and beat up him and his son with rods and sticks, Ashok said. They didn’t allow the family members to take the grievously wounded Kishanlal to hospital, he added.

Those arrested have been booked under IPC 302 (murder) and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, police said. The search for others involved in the incident is on, SHO, Soorsagar Police Station, Gautam Dotasara said.

Demanding immediate arrest of all accused as well as financial compensation and a government job for the next of kin, Kishanlal’s family and other local Hindus staged a protest and refused to perform his last rites. “We have been in conversation with the demonstrators so that the postmortem can be done and the body be handed over to the family for funeral,” said Dotasara.