Police have filed an FIR under charges of murder after a 35-year-old dairy operator, Junaid Qureshi, died on Monday night, allegedly after sustaining injuries during a late-night confrontation over transporting cattle in Madhya Pradesh’s Raisen district. The man’s family claims he was assaulted by cow vigilantes.
Qureshi, who operated a dairy business in ’s Jinsi area, died at Hamidia Hospital. His companion, Armaan from Shyampur, is critical.
Police have filed an FIR against multiple individuals and made at least three arrests, a senior officer stated, but did not disclose further details.
The alleged incident occurred when Qureshi and Armaan were transporting seven cows and one bull in a pickup truck near Mehargaon village. Family members allege that 20-25 men stopped their vehicle between Sanchi and Raisen and subjected both men to hours of beating throughout the night.
“He was transporting the cows for dairy. The men stopped them in Megaon and beat them through the night,” Mohammad Maj Qureshi, a family member, alleged.
The family also claimed the attackers looted approximately Rs 2 lakh from them.
Simultaneously, police have filed a separate FIR against Qureshi, based on a complaint by a Raisen-based bike workshop owner, under sections of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the Madhya Pradesh Prohibition of Slaughter of Cows Act.
The complainant claimed that he and three others intercepted Qureshi’s vehicle based on a tip-off about cattle smuggling from the Rahatgarh area.
He claimed the group found the cattle “cruelly crammed” into the vehicle, bound for slaughterhouses in Bhopal. He claimed that when questioned about the cattle transport, Qureshi and Armaan “provided no satisfactory answers and attempted to escape from the vehicle” and “sustained injuries when they fell while running.”
The rescued cattle have been moved to Vitthal Bhai’s Gaushala in Vidisha.
