Faridabad:

Cow vigilante Bittu Bajrangi alias Rajkumar Panchal, an accused in the Nuh violence case, filed his nomination as an independent candidate from NIT assembly segment in Faridabad on Monday.

The assembly elections will be held in Haryana on October 5.

In an official statement, District Election Officer Vikram Singh confirmed that Bajrangi has filed his nomination as an independent from NIT Faridabad seat.

Bajrangi, who formed Gau Raksha Bajrang Force, has a long association with controversies.

Bajrangi has been an accused in the case of Nuh violence that had started in July last year after a procession organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad was attacked by a mob.

Five people, including two home guards, were killed and many injured in the violence that erupted on July 31 last year in Nuh and spread to other areas of the state. In Gurugram, a naib imam was killed at a mosque amid a series of incidents of arson.

In July this year, three cases were registered against Bajrangi in Faridabad.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Bittu Bajrangi, who is out on bail after being arrested in the case of violence in Haryana’s Nuh last year, has been caught on camera beating up a man with a stick as others from his cow vigilante group pin him down. In the video, which has now gone viral, a policeman is seen standing within touching distance of the man, but remains a mute spectator.

The police have not registered a case yet. 

Police officials said the video is from April 1 and the man who has been thrashed is a resident of Faridabad’s Sarurpur. The man, Shamu, was accused of luring two girls from his neighbourhood into his house by offering them chocolates and local residents suspected that he intended to sexually abuse them. Some of his neighbours barged into the house and caught hold of Shamu.

News of the incident spread and members of Bajrangi’s cow vigilante group, Goraksha Bajrang Force, reached the spot and took Shamu with them to their leader’s house in Faridabad’s Sanjay Enclave. The video from outside Bajrangi’s house shows the cow vigilante, who is also a Bajrang Dal member, holding a stick as other men from his group drag a pleading Shamu along the ground.

A policeman is seen sitting on a chair inches from the man and he gets up, but does nothing to intervene. A man can then be heard asking the others to turn Shamu on his side and Bajrangi alias Raj Kumar proceeds to hit him with a stick at least four times. Police officials said the mother of one of the girls had also hit Shamu with the stick before Bajrangi proceeded to do so. 

The officer in charge of Saran Police Station said, “We have seen the viral video and are looking for the man who was beaten up. After we get a complaint from him, we will take appropriate action. If we don’t get a complaint from him, we will track down the accused using the video and social media and take action against them.”

The communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh had broken out in July last year during a procession organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and then spread to other areas, including Gurugram and Badshahpur. Five people were killed and at least 70 people were injured. A mosque had also been set ablaze and a cleric was among the dead.