By Aparajita Ghosh, TwoCircles.net
Mumbai: “Tum Hindustan mein rehne ke laayak nahi ho, tum yahan nahi reh sakte.” These were the words of the assailants who allegedly beat Suhail Tamboli, Aslam Ather, Sayyed Layak, Nizamuddin Qazi on the night of 16 September in Beed’s Hol village in Maharashtra.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, the Tablighi Jamaat members said that they were travelling to Ambajogai village from Dharur for their friend’s funeral when the car they were travelling in developed a glitch and they had to halt.
Suhail Tamboli and Sayyed Layak went to get water for coolant and parked the car.
Meanwhile, two men on a bike arrived at the spot where their car was parked and for no reason started verbally abusing Aslam and Nizamuddin, and as per them, “used filthy language against our community.” The men were wearing skull caps and Kurtas.
The Jamaat members politely tried to deal with the situation but within a span of a few minutes, the men made a call and six more men arrived at the spot, armed with sticks.
“They certainly intended to kill us that night,” said the 34-year-old Suhail Tamboli. “They also pulled our beards and threw our caps,” he added.
The incident took place at around quarter to ten and went on for the next forty minutes. The police arrived at the site an hour later.
“One of them smashed a brick twice on my head and kept hitting me with a stick till it broke,” said Suhail. “I thought I’m going to die that night.”
Aslam Ather, 24, was waiting near the car when the incident took place, “They hit me with punches and sticks,” he said. “I ran away and saw them hitting others mercilessly. I was too scared,” he added.
“It felt like we were their enemies for a long time. We were clueless for why they were constantly hitting us,” said Sayyed Layak. “They were not ready to listen to us at all. Before we could speak anything they started hitting us with bricks,” the 38-year-old said.
Sayyed and Aslam successfully managed to escape the site and hid in the nearby farm. “We fled to the farm but we were watching. We could not rescue them, all of us would have been killed then,” said Sayyed.
“They kept hitting us till we fell on the ground and kept kicking our chest and head. I fell unconscious after that,” said Suhail.
The assailants damaged the car after beating them and left. “We heard them saying ‘they are dead’ to other boys and left,” Aslam said.
Aslam and Sayyed made calls to their village and informed them of the incident after which Suhail and Nizamuddin were taken to Ambejogai Government Hospital.
However, an FIR has been registered on 17 September at Yusuf Wadgaon Police Station under Section 307 (Attempt to murder), 324 (Voluntary assault with weapon), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 147 (Punishment for rioting), 148 (Punishment for rioting and armed with deadly weapon), 149 (Individual of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 405 (Criminal breach of trust) and 527 (Imprisonment for lifetime)of IPC.
According to API Anand Zote of Yusuf Wadgaon Police Station, two assailants namely Narayan Dhanraj Ghuge and Rahul Tukaram Ghuge among six have been arrested presently.