A cow vigilante on the run after he was accused of inciting deadly communal violence in India’s northern Haryana state has been arrested.
Mohit Yadav, better known by his alias Monu Manesar, was arrested for allegedly uploading “objectionable and inflammatory” posts under a fictitious name on social media after the violence, Indian media reports said on Tuesday.
The violence in Nuh, Haryana’s only Muslim-majority district about 100km (62 miles) from New Delhi, started on July 31 after far-right groups held a religious procession through the district.
Two days before the procession, Manesar, who heads the local cow protection unit of the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), released a Facebook video saying he would attend the procession as he exhorted other Hindus to join him.
Nuh residents said the video angered them since Manesar, 28, is among 21 people named in a first information report (FIR) for lynching two Muslim men in February this year.
The charred remains of Junaid Khan, 35, and Nasir Hussain, 27, who were cousins from neighbouring Rajasthan state, were found in a car in Haryana’s Bhiwani district on February 16.
