Aligarh and Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh: On the night of 30 December 2024, Shahedeen Qureshi, a 37-year-old resident of Moradabad, was lynched by a mob over allegations of cow slaughter.
A labourer, he earned his livelihood by pulling manual carts.
"Arre mar gaya (oh, he died)," said a voice in a video filmed by the attackers, as they hurled abuses and beat him with sticks, surrounding and knocking him to the ground.
According to Shahedeen’s brother Guddu, who goes by the single name, he was rushed to the hospital at around 3 am on 31 December, and succumbed to injuries the next day at Teerthanker Mahaveer University (TMU) hospital, Moradabad.
“His wrists, fingers, ribs, skull, nothing was intact,” he said.
“He had gone out for some work to the Mandi Samiti area,” Guddu told Article 14. “The next day, we saw videos and learnt that he was beaten, on accusations of cow slaughter. He was an ordinary labourer.”
The incident, Guddu said, was purportedly planned and filmed by vigilantes to incite communal unrest in the region.
On 31 December 2024, Rohan Saksena, a local leader of Rashtriya Bajrang Dal, claimed responsibility for the incident in a video, saying that Bittu and Om Prakash, members of the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal and Hindu Parishad, the right-wing Hindutva organizations, had caught Shahedeen with what they claimed was beef.
However, the Moradabad police claimed that the killing didn't amount to invoking the mob lynching charges, claiming that “the offence of lynching is not made out”.
The police filed two cases, one accusing Shahedeen—along with two unnamed accused—of cow slaughter.
It invoked sections 3 (Prohibition of Cow Slaughter), 5 (Prohibition on Sale of Beef), and 8 (Penalty) of the Uttar Pradesh Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955, along with section 11 (Animal Cruelty) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
Another FIR was registered under section 103(1) (murder) of the Bharatiya Nayaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, against unnamed accused, after Shahedeen succumbed to his injuries.
A Pattern Emerges
Since the introduction of the new provision addressing mob lynching under section 103(2) of the BNS in July 2024, police avoided invoking it in nine cases tracked by Article 14 across Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh.
The absence of the term “lynching” in the new BNS provision—despite government claims that it addresses the crime—has allowed police to treat such cases as ordinary murders. The law defines mob killing as “a murder by a group of five or more people” on grounds of “race, caste, community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other ground”.
In the nine cases we analysed, the police ignored their communal nature, and denied identity-based targeting of the Muslim victims.
Instead of filing cases under the new provision, under sub-clause 2 of section 103 of BNS—punishment for murder—defining mob killing as murder by a group of 5 or more people, cases were filed under sections relating to murder in five cases, culpable homicide not amounting to murder and fatal accident in one case each—suppressing the lynching element in favour of vigilantism, despite evidence.
In one case in Karnataka, police initially recorded a lynching as an unnatural death, revising it later to invoke mob lynching charges. While in another case in Jharkhand, police invoked lynching charges on the victim's wife's complaint but later recorded it as an accident based on the post-mortem.
Of the nine cases Article 14 tracked, five were cow-related lynchings, carried out over allegations, or mere suspicion, of cow slaughter, beef consumption, cattle theft or possession of beef.
The four other incidents included lynchings after demands for extortion, causing hurt by accident, theft allegations, and claims of pro-Pakistan slogans.
In the nine cases we reviewed, the evidence showed:
- Videos, often filmed by the assailants, showed them claiming responsibility or documenting the attack in four of the cases.
- In one case witness statements were not recorded before a magistrate.
- In one case, an FIR, under cow protection laws, was filed against the victims before forensic tests were conducted on the meat alleged to be beef.
- Evidence contradicted police claims in the two cases they classified as accidental deaths.
- FIRs in four of the cases contained deliberate obfuscation and mishandling of facts by the police.
- Police claimed to have ‘rescued’ victims in three cases—even in FIRs where the victims later died during treatment.
A pattern across the cases we analysed showed that instead of acting against unlawful vigilante violence, police amplified allegations against the victims, shifting focus from the lynching, or claimed that the mob assaults were not the cause of death.
In three more cases (here, here and here) of mob lynchings or attacks Article 14 examined, police filed counter FIRs against the victims.
‘A Concocted Story’
On the night of 31 December, Adnan, a 25-year-old from Moradabad, who goes by the single name, was picked up from his home by the police in connection with the Shahedeen murder and cow slaughter case.
He was accused of murdering Shahedeen for “revenge”, according to the chargesheet, despite his name not appearing in either of the two FIRs.
Adnan got bail in the murder case on 18 March 2025, and in the cow slaughter case on 18 April 2025 from the Moradabad sessions court.
In the cow slaughter case chargesheet, police added BNS sections 318(4) (cheating), 336(3) and 338 (forgery), and 340(2) (using forged documents).
Adnan’s bail plea argued the charges didn’t hold as he was neither named in the FIR nor arrested from the spot. It called his arrest with a scooty, which the police claimed to have recovered, “fake and false”, as no scooty was recovered or linked to him.
The plea added he was falsely implicated in both cases, despite Shahedeen dying from mob assault.
In the murder case, the police alleged that Adnan killed Shahedeen as he was having an affair with Shahedeen's wife, a claim the bail plea dismissed as entirely false, while noting the absence of evidence or any mention of such a motive in the FIR or witness statements.
Article 14 has seen copies of the bail petitions.
Advocate Shariq Hussain, a Moradabad based lawyer who represents Shahedeen's family, told Article 14, “the police concocted a story to ensure that the case is not registered as mob lynching, but merely as murder.”
“How can the prosecution simultaneously present two different grounds of being a co-accused with the deceased in one case and the accused killing the deceased in the other case,” Hussain argued.
On 10 July 2025, Allahabad High Court stayed the investigation in the murder FIR until the next hearing on 5 August, noting the case merited invoking section 103(2) of BNS instead of section 103(1) (murder).
The court acted on a petition by Shahedeen’s brother, Mohammad Alam, which flagged flawed police investigation, seeking an SIT probe and Rs 5,000,000 compensation, while also pointing out that Uttar Pradesh had yet to formulate a victim compensation scheme, violating the binding Supreme Court’s 2018 Poonawalla guidelines meant to curb incidents of mob lynching.
Mob Lynching Law Meets Old Patterns of Denial
On 1 April 2025, the Supreme Court directed the BJP-led central government to file a status report on section 103(2) of the BNS, which came into force on 1 July 2024, as it claimed that lynching was now categorised as a distinct offence under the BNS.
In 2018, the Supreme Court’s guidelines in Tehseen Poonawalla judgment had urged parliament to enact a separate anti-lynching law.
The guidelines mandated states to appoint district nodal officers, identify vulnerable areas, file hate crime FIRs under section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups: now section 196 in BNS), create victim compensation schemes ensuring compensation within a month, and fast-track trials within six months.
Yet, nearly seven years later, the guidelines remain ignored (here, here and here).
Legal experts said that by avoiding section 103(2) of BNS, police continue to deny mob lynching as the cause of death—a pattern that persisted even before the BNS—by default evading the compliance with the guidelines.
Meeran Borwankar, a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) official, member of the Article 14 advisory board and former director general of Bureau of Police Research and Development, told Article 14, “The definition of section 103(2) of BNS, which lays down the punishment for mob lynching, is very clear and police cannot avoid it.”
Although the BNS addressed mob lynching for the first time, it avoids the term “lynching”, defining it instead as a murder by “a group of five or more people”, on grounds of “race, caste, community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other ground”.
Advocate Nizamuddin Pasha, who practices in the supreme court, said, “If the state refuses to acknowledge an incident as mob lynching or invoke Section 103(2), there are no victims in the eyes of the law and no obligation to comply with the Tehseen Poonawalla guidelines.”
He added that the problem lay in the non-enforcement of existing laws, “not in the need for newer or better ones”.
This contradiction is most stark between cow protection laws, enforced in at least 13 states as of 2025, and the provisions meant to prevent mob lynchings.
These laws (examples here, here, and here), with provisions for forming local committees, grant them quasi-policing powers—including the authority to inspect, seize and enforce—under the guise of cow protection and “good faith”, effectively functioning as instruments enabling mob lynchings.
“When lynchings occur, the state often responds not by filing FIRs against the perpetrators, but by registering cases against the victims, primarily under Gauraksha Adhiniyams, or cattle protection laws,” Pasha said.
Pretexts Of Lynching
In September 2024, Article 14 reported the lynching of Sabir Malik, a scrap worker from Bengal, in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri. He was beaten to death on accusations of cooking beef.
One and a half months after Malik’s lynching, a forensic report confirmed the seized meat was not beef. Despite cow vigilantes publicly admitting to the killing, the police registered a case of murder under section 103(1) of BNS.
The incident took place on 27 August 2024, just four days after Aryan Mishra, a 19-year-old from Faridabad, was chased and shot dead by cow vigilantes over suspicion of carrying beef.
The FIR in Mishra’s case was initially recorded as murder, and in November, the police invoked section 103(2)—mob lynching—marking the first reported case where the new law was invoked.
On 8 December 2024, Sheikh Tajuddin, a livestock and vegetable trader, was lynched in Sapra village, Saraikela-Kharsawan district, Jharkhand, on suspicion of cattle theft.
He died five days later, on 13 December 2024.
Advocate Md Zahid Iqbal, the legal counsel representing the victim’s family, said police deliberately avoided invoking mob lynching charges to shield the perpetrators.
“The police didn't record eyewitness statements under section 164 of the CrPC which would have made a lynching case unavoidable despite our repeated attempts,” Iqbal said.
In January, the Jharkhand State Minority Commission (JSMC), which constituted a team to probe the incident, acknowledged it as a case of mob lynching.
Article 14 emailed JSMC on 7 June but received no response. An official declined comment, and attempts to reach chairman of the commission Hidayatullah Khan via phone went unanswered. We’ll update the story if they respond.
On 9 May 2025, S K Rahil, a 25-year-old resident of Dewan Bazar in Cuttack district of Odisha, was returning at night from Kalapathar in Khurda, around 47 kilometres from Cuttack.
Around 4 am, cow vigilantes chased Rahil, who was travelling with a friend and relative in a family-owned car, and punctured the tyres with spike strips. They beat him to death and set the car on fire.
“The Bajrang Dal routinely extorts money from meat traders, for allowing ‘safe passage.’ Suspecting my son was a cattle trader, they killed him only because he was Muslim,” Sarwar Ali, Rahil’s father, told Article 14. “He had nothing to do with meat.”
The police registered a murder case against 13 accused, according to the FIR seen by Article 14.
In May, deputy commissioner of police, Cuttack, Khilari Rishikesh Dnyandeo, told the media that Rahil was killed for resisting a “dacoity” attempt.
Threats, Counter FIRs & Extortion
A common trend involves lodging counter cases against victims of mob lynchings under offences like dacoity, theft, or charges related to cattle slaughter (as seen here, here, here & here).
In several incidents, cow vigilantes committed lynching after their extortion demands weren't met by the victims.
“You won’t know what will happen to your vehicle.”
This was the threat made to Mohammed Bhura Habibullah, a 32-year-old meat trader from Mirzapur, Ahmedabad.
“The cow vigilantes demanded Rs 25,000, but Bhura refused, saying his trade was legal,” Muqeem Qureshi, Habibullah's brother, told Article 14.
Five days later, on 21 April 2025, his charred body was found in his burnt vehicle.
On 21 April, Gandhinagar police filed a complaint under sections 281 (rash driving) and 106(1) (causing death by negligence) of the BNS, along with sections 177 (contravention of rules), 183 (overspeeding), 184 (dangerous driving), and 187 (offences related to accidents) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
The FIR named both the deceased and Rafiq Sayed, the survivor, as accused, alleging that the car caught fire after colliding with an object.
Contrary to the police’s claim, the post-mortem revealed injuries inconsistent with their version. Microscopic analysis showed multiple blunt injuries, including tramline contusions, abrasions on the chest and right arm, and an ante-mortem skull fracture.
Advocate Noman Ghanchi, an Ahmedabad-based lawyer who is a legal counsel in the case, said, “If this were an accident, how could Rafiq be found 100 meters away under a tree while Bhura died inside the vehicle? Rafiq had clear injury marks all over his body, but no burn marks.”
In a complaint to the Gandhinagar superintendent of police, on 23 April 2025, seen by Article 14, Muqeem Qureshi said cow vigilantes in Santej village demanded money and beat Sayed and burnt Habibullah alive, when they refused.
He claimed the police took his signature on a “prepared complaint”, refusing to record the facts as he described.
Habibullah’s death isn’t an isolated instance. Since September 2024, two others in Gujarat were allegedly burned to death by cow vigilantes.
In a mob attack on 24 May 2025, which we tracked alongside the nine fatal assault cases, three meat shop owners from Aligarh’s Atrauli—Aqeel Kaleem, Qadeem Qureshi, and Arbaaz, who goes by the single name—and their driver Aqil, who also goes by only one name, were returning from Al-Ammar, a meat company. They were intercepted by cow vigilantes who demanded transport bills for the meat and tried to extort Rs 50,000.
“They tore the bills,” said Kaleem. Soon, a mob of over 300 locals affiliated to Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Sena and Bajrang Dal gathered.
The four were attacked with chains, rods, sticks, and belts after the attackers overturned their pickup van in police presence, videos of the incident showed.
This wasn’t the first time. According to Qadeem Qureshi, one of the four victims, the same group had stopped them and demanded Rs 50,000 just 15 days earlier.
Six months ago, they had allegedly extorted Rs 170,000 from them, he added.
“They routinely stop traders like us—despite all legal documents—and demand money,” said Arbaaz. “They operate like linemen, extorting vehicles transporting cattle.”
Despite no prior lab testing of the meat, Aligarh police filed a cow slaughter case against the four, based on a complaint by Bajrang Dal member Vijay Bajrangi—later named as an accused in the mob assault.
On 30 May, Aligarh Superintendent of Police (Rural) Amrit Jain told The Indian Express, "The provisions related to cow slaughter will be removed since the FSL report confirmed that it was buffalo meat. But if we find other lacunae in meat transportation, permission or under the Cruelty to Animals Act, the relevant sections will be added to the FIR.”
Theft Allegations, Slogans And Cover-ups
On 29 April 2025, Karnataka home minister G Parameshwar alleged that Mohammad Ashraf, 37, shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” during a cricket match in Mangalore, triggering a mob that lynched him on 27 April.
He retracted the statement the next day.
Mangalore police filed two FIRs. The first, based on a complaint from a witness called Manjunath, identified by the single name, recorded Ashraf’s death as unnatural and denied that there were any injuries on his body.
A second FIR under section 103(2) of BNS was filed on 28 April based on a complaint from another witness, Deepak, also identified by a single name. This FIR named Manjunath as part of the mob. This second FIR made no mention of the alleged slogan.
Article 14 accessed three suspension orders issued on 1 May 2025 by the police commissioner of Mangalore, against an inspector and two constables for filing an unnatural death report despite knowing it was mob lynching and for failing to inform superiors.
The suspensions raised concerns under the Poonawalla guidelines, which mandate action against nodal officers.
In this case, Siddharth Goyal, DCP (Law and Order), Mangalore, who is the designated nodal officer, had visited the site on 27 April, as per a 29 June 2025 fact-finding report by the Karnataka state chapters of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Association of Protection for Civil Rights and All India Lawyers Association for Justice. Yet, only lower-level officers were suspended.
In other cases police shifted focus from the lynching by amplifying allegations against the victims.
In Shamli, Uttar Pradesh, on 3 July 2024, Firoz Qureshi, a cart puller, was assaulted over theft allegations and handed over to the police. Police told his family he was having seizures but concealed the assault.
He died two hours later.
“Firoz had no history of seizures. When we questioned police about his injuries, they admitted he was beaten,” said Mohammad Amjad Qureshi, Firoz's brother.
On 5 July, an FIR was filed based on a complaint by Mohammad Afzal Qureshi, another of Qureshi's brothers, under section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the BNS.
A copy of the complaint, widely circulated online, cited a line from the FIR that read “...mera bhai Firoz jo ki kabhi kabhar nasha kar leta tha…” (my brother Firoz who used to drink occasionally).
This was allegedly added after police asked Mohammad Afzal whether Qureshi drank, and told him to mention it—implying Qureshi was drunk.
Several journalists on X (Twitter) (here, here and here) noted that police neither classified the death as a lynching nor invoked murder or mob lynching charges. In response, Shamli police booked five people, including two journalists, under sections 196 (promoting enmity) and 353 (public mischief) of the BNS.
Shamli Police maintained that Qureshi was not lynched and claimed the post-mortem didn’t confirm assault as the cause of death.
The police insisted that the incident wasn't communal and that Qureshi was “drunk” and died at his own home.
However, the post-mortem report said the “cause of death could not be ascertained”, though it noted abrasions and contusions on multiple body parts.
Two other incidents followed a similar pattern, where lynchings were either justified or dismissed by framing the allegations as reasons for the attack.
In Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, Maulana Shahabuddin was lynched on 30 June, 2024 after his bike accidentally hit a woman, Avanti Yadav, who then called others to attack him.
Though police initially invoked section 103(2) (murder by five or more persons) of the BNS on 2 July 2024, based on a complaint and video evidence from his wife, Ansari Khatoon, they later denied it was a lynching.
On 10 July, Hazaribagh district collector Nancy Sahay and SP Arvind Kumar Singh claimed the post-mortem did not confirm mob lynching, attributing Shahabuddin’s death to a head injury from the bike accident.
Similarly, on 19 October 2024 in Vadodara, Gujarat, Shahbaz Khan, 21, was lynched over theft allegations, while his companion Imran Tiliyawada survived the attack. Police filed a murder case, alleging both “intended to commit robbery”.
This pattern of police claims suggesting the victim didn’t die from the attack—and, so, was not a mob lynching—persists despite the evidence that it was.
“This is a routine tactic,” said S R Darapuri, a former IPS officer, “used by the police to suppress the gravity of a crime like mob lynching.”
(Syed Affan is a Delhi-based journalist who reports on human rights, the environment and policy.)
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