Doubts over cause of Gujarat murder

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, APRIL 14. Doubts have been raised about the real causes behind the murder in broad daylight of 28-year-old Prakash Shah, a member of the Rajpur-Deesa Panjrapol Trust, in Deesa taluka of Banaskantha district in north Gujarat. While the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the ruling BJP in the State are out to make politicl capital out of the incident, the district police are looking for other plausible causes including personal disputes over gambling.

The VHP and the State BJP maintain that Mr. Shah's passionate love for cows for which he had often picked up quarrel with the local butcher community members led to his murder, but some senior district police officials said they had reasons to suspect that the murder was an outcome of personal disputes over gambling.

Though the District Superintendent of Police, Mr. Manoj Shashidharan, refuted a report in a local newspaper which quoted him as saying that non-payment of gambling dues led to the murder, other senior police officials on condition of anonimity do not rule out such a possibility. The newspaper report quoting the DSP of suspecting gambling to be behind the cause of the murder has irritated both the Minister of State for Home, Mr. Haren Pandya, and the VHP leaders since it would not only take the advantage away from the organisations but would also show them in poor light.

Mr. Shah was allegedly attacked by some butchers armed with lathis and dharias on April 2 while he was on his way from his residence in Rajpur to the Dessa panjarapole (cow shed). Mr. Shah received multiple injuries on his body but with the support of a passer-by managed to reach the local police station to lodge a complaint naming two butchers of Deesa, Rashid Khatki and Hanif Khatki, as the attackers. He was later shifted to a private hospital in Ahmedabad as his condition started deteriorating rapidly but succumbed to injuries yesterday. Police arrested Rashid in Deesa and Hanif from Ahmedabad and are on the look out for a few others who were also believed to be among the attackers.

The incident has enraged many traders' associations and the pro- Hindu organisations who organised a day-long ``Ram dhun'' at a prominent location in Ahmedabad yesterday and has arranged for a public meeting tomorrow to protest against the murder of a ``saint who sacrificed his life to protect the cows from being slaughtered illegally.'' Deesa town and the district headquarter Palanpur observed a protest bandh yesterday.

The police, however, has no clue of the murder other than what Mr. Shah himself had said in the FIR. All those named witnesses in the FIR later told the police that they had reached the spot later and had not seen Mr. Shah being actually attacked. Police also could not verify the FIR as Mr. Shah had soon passed into coma and did not regain consciousness till the end. Mr. Shashidharan said Mr. Shah's activities for the cow protection could be the cause of the murder but it was ``too early to reach any conclusion.'' He, however, said he was not aware if Mr. Shah had any criminal background.But both Mr. Haren Pandya and the BJP official spokesman, Mr. Bharat Pandya, were more than convinced that Mr. Shah's activities for the protection of cows for the last eight years was not appreciated by the members of the bucher community which finally led to his murder.

The VHP claim Mr. Shah's murder to be the latest in the series ``of sacrifices on the altar of cow protection,'' including the murder of Geetaben Rambhiya in Ahmedabad some six years ago which led to bloody communal riots, and the murder of Haribhai Solanki on the eve of Bakri-Id last year. Mr. Shah's murder, however, has so far not caused outrage in the society possibly because of the doubts raised about the real causes.

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Section  : Regional
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