Farmers harvest wheat crops amid the nationwide lockdown imposed in the wake of coronavirus pandemic in Haryana. (PTI Photo/File)
A retired Army personnel who is currently deployed as a Special Police Officer (SPO) at the Nuh City police station in Haryana was allegedly attacked by seven men earlier this week. The men allegedly physically assaulted him and tried to strangle him with a rope, insisting that he was among the people “spreading the coronavirus”.
According to a complaint registered with the police by Shameena, the wife of the victim, Saimuddin, the incident occurred on April 6, while her husband was walking to Danibas village to oversee the harvesting work in his fields. The incident occurred when he reached Sangel village, where residents had blocked the path using a barbed fence.
“They had left some space from where pedestrians or a motorcycle could pass. When my husband passed through there… the sarpanch of Sangel village, who was near that fence, called out ‘catch him, don’t let him go’. He used caste slurs and abused him, said he was spreading the coronavirus illness,” the complainant alleged.
In the minutes that followed, seven men allegedly tied the rope around Saimuddin’s neck and “pulled hard and made all efforts to kill him”.
“My husband fell to the ground. When he regained consciousness, he found he had been put inside the four walls of a water chamber,” said Shameena, adding that his relatives found out about the incident when a passerby called up her father-in-law and alerted him.
“My husband had taken his motorcycle and reached only a little distance when family members found him,” she says.
Although the family initially rushed Saimuddin to the Government Hospital in Nuh, he was eventually referred to Artemis Hospital in Gurgaon, where he underwent an operation and has currently been put on a ventilator.
“My husband served in the Army for 20 years and even now is serving his country as an SPO with the Haryana Police, in Nuh City police station. It gives me great sorrow that, after everything he has done, this is the treatment he received from his countrymen,” said Shameena.
The Nuh Police, meanwhile, registered an FIR under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering human life), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“An FIR has been registered regarding the matter against seven people, including the sarpanch of Sangel village. No arrests have been made yet. Our investigation is underway,” said Inspector Vishal Kumar, Station House Officer (SHO) of the Nuh Police Station.
In the FIR, the accused have been identified as Sonu, Mukesh, Vinod, Kailash, Vikas, Kaushal, and the sarpanch, Rajendra, all of who are residents of Sangel village.
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