Indian man battered with hammer over suspicion of smuggling cow meat

NEW DELHI: An unarmed man was kicked and battered with a hammer near the Indian capital over suspicion of smuggling cow meat, NDTV reported on Saturday.

The suspects beat the man, identified as Lukman, with "impunity", the publication said, adding that it gives "chilling echoes of the 2015 Dadri mob lynching in Noida" —  a place also very close to New Delhi.

Around 9 am on Friday, a group of cow vigilantes chased a vehicle for about 8km and managed to stop it.

After that, Lukman was pulled out and brutally beaten on suspicion that he was smuggling cow meat.

The authorities present were faster at sending the meat to a lab for testing than catching any one of the suspects, the Indian publication mentioned.

One of the assailants, identified as Pradeep Yadav, has been arrested so far.

Lukman, after experiencing a near-death beating was loaded into a vehicle and taken back to Gurgaon's Badshahpur village, where the men started beating him again.

At that point, the police present in the area stepped in and attempted to stop the suspects. However, the suspects were bold enough to scuffle with police as well. 

The victim was taken to a hospital, after which police filed a complaint against "unidentified individuals" who had beaten him to a pulp.

However, the owner of the vehicles clarified that the meat was of a buffalo and that he has been in the business for "50 years".

According to the publication, the police have declined to record a statement and refused to explain the incident.

Several vigilante groups have made headlines over the past couple of years in India for taking the law into their own hands and inflicting violence on vulnerable people.

In most cases, victims of the mob beatings are Muslims.

Opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that such groups have become emboldened since his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014.