At about 1am on August 24, Aryan Mishra, a 19-year-old 12th-grade student received a phone call.
Two of his friends, both sons of Mishra’s landlord, wanted him to join them for a late-night snack – noodles, according to reports. Mishra soon joined them, grabbing the passenger seat in the landlord’s red SUV in a middle-class neighbourhood in Faridabad, a city in Haryana state on the outskirts of the national capital, New Delhi.
One of the brothers, Harshit Gulati, was at the wheel, while his elder sibling, Shankey Gulati, 26, was in the rear with their mother Sujata Gulati and her friend Kirti Sharma, according to Indian media reports.
As they drove along the largely empty streets of Faridabad, a car with a flashing red and blue beacon on top of it tried to stop them, local media reports said. Such beacons are usually allowed only on government vehicles. But the illegal use of these beacons by private vehicles remains rampant – especially when the owner is politically influential.
Details of what happened next are hazy and are being investigated by the police. But according to most reports, the car that Aryan and his friends were in tried to speed away from the chasing vehicle. Was that because they were just scared of being followed by an unknown car? Was it because Shankey, according to some reports, was accused in a separate attempted murder case, and his family thought they were being pursued by a police vehicle?
What is known is that a 40-kilometre (25-mile) chase followed. During the chase, a gunshot fired from the car behind hit Mishra on the shoulder. Harshit stopped the car. The men behind pulled up. One of them walked up to the car and pumped another bullet into Mishra’s neck from close range. The teenager was rushed to a local hospital, where he died.
Though the killing took place almost two weeks ago, its details are emerging only now, shocking and outraging the country.
Mishra had been killed in cold blood. But it is not that alone that has caused the outrage. It is the fact that Mishra was Hindu, killed by another Hindu – who thought he was Muslim. The suspects were cow vigilantes, members of a nationwide right-wing Hindu militia, Gau Raksha Dal (GRD or Cow Protection Association), that claims to protect cows – considered holy by many Hindus – from slaughter, mainly by Muslim cattle traders.
Cow slaughter is banned or regulated in most Indian states, while the biggest beef exporters live in India and are all Hindus.
