Mewat under spotlight over death of two cattle smugglers. Here is how the region has become hotbed of terrorism, forced conversion and cow smuggling

Mewat region has been in the news once again after the death of two cattle smugglers identified as Junaid (35) and Nasir (25). The charred bodies of the duo were recovered in Haryana’s Bhiwani region.

Based on the complaint of the family members, the police arrested a man named Rinku Saini from Mewat in connection to the case. Mewat region, which falls over Rajasthan and Haryana, has been a hotbed of organised crime, cattle smuggling and illegal Rohingyas.

Attempts at conversion to Islam
In July 2017, teachers of the government-run Mewat Model School in Madhi village were accused of forcing two Hindu students to offer Namaz and convert to Islam. The accused were identified as Moinuddin, Mubarak Ali and Mohammed Arif.

In the aftermath of the incident, the victims were forced to leave the school. While the accused teachers were suspended by the administration initially, the local Muslims ambushed the school in the hopes of overturning the decision.

A year later in January 2018, a Dalit family living in the Mohlaka village of Mewat was brutally attacked by goons for refusing to convert to Islam. As per reports, casteist slurs were also hurled at the family.

The complainant, Kishan, informed that a villager named Islam was pressurising them to convert to his religion. After the Dalit family refused to give in, Islam and his accomplices, Taufeeq, Mosim, Ataru and Asmina, attacked them with sticks and iron rods. Kishan suffered grave injuries during the assault.

In July 2019, a man named Hzar Khan was arrested forcing his 22-year-old wife to file false cases of sexual assault against people and extort money.

“Hzar forced me to change my religion and marry him in 2017, a year after I started working at his Unani clinic. And soon after our marriage, he started torturing me mentally and physically,” the victim was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

In October 2020, a terrifying incident of attempted love jihad and forced conversion of non-Muslims into Islam came to the fore with the blood-curdling murder of a 21-year-old student named Nikita Tomar in Faridabad.

She was shot dead in broad daylight by two men outside the Aggarwal college in Ballabgarh, Faridabad. One of the two assailants, Tauseef was harassing her and making advances at Nikita.

Terror links in Mewat
In September 2018, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) busted a hawala module and arrested 3 terrorists associated with Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, an organisation run by Hafiz Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The accused were identified as Mohammad Salman, Mohammad Salim and Sajjad Abdul Wani. Interestingly, Salman was a resident of Uttawar village in Mewat.

A month later, it came to light that the Khulafa-e-Rashideen mosque in the same village was built with funds received from the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Cattle smuggling in the region
Mewat has been a hotbed of cow smuggling activities. In January 2019, the police raided the house of a man named Nishad in the Arandka village and recovered the flesh and skin of cows.

The police had found 20-22 kgs of beef and cowhide in the nearby field. The incident took place in the Tijara area of the Alwar district, which falls under the Mewat region.

In February of that year, a vehicle illegally carrying 8 calves broke through a police barricade near the Shahpur Kheda area of Ferozepur Jhirka in the Nuh district and mowed down the Additional Superintendent of Police in the process.

The perpetrators also open-fired at the cops with a country-made pistol. The police returned fired and managed to nab one of the perpetrators by the name of Mujib. It must be mentioned that Nuh forms part of the Mewat region which cuts across Rajasthan and Haryana.

In October 2019, a group of 6 cow smugglers shot a Bajrang Dal member in the Delhi NCR region while they were trying to escape towards Mewat from Sector 10 of Gurugram.

Courtesy : Opindia

Note: This news piece was originally published in opindia.com and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights