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The incident happened on Wednesday night at Saroornagar when the victim, B Nagaraju, a Dalit was travelling on a motorbike with his wife and was confronted by his attackers — Syed Mobin Ahmed and Mohammed Masood Ahmed — who came on a scooter, stopped the couple on the road and attacked the man in full public view with an iron rod before stabbing him with a knife, killing him on the spot, police said. Both persons have been arrested.
Police said Syed Mobin Ahmed was opposed to his sister’s relationship with Nagaraju, and had even warned her against it.
After stopping the couple, the duo pushed Nagaraju to the ground and beat him up indiscriminately with the rod and stabbed him to death and finally fled the place, police said.
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The victim’s distraught wife told the media she knew her husband for the last 11 years and claimed five persons attacked him.
The Hindu-Muslim couple were classmates in school and college and were in love for more than five years even though her family was against the relationship. They got married in January this year against the wishes of her family members, police said.
Mobin Ahmed had warned his sister in the past, police said, adding she subsequently walked out of her house to marry Nagaraju.
Since then Mobin Ahmed was nursing a grudge against Nagaraju, police said. He had been planning to eliminate Nagaraju and along with his relative hatched a plan and implemented it on Wednesday, police said. The victim’s father also alleged Mobin Ahmed was opposed to the inter-faith marriage.
Condemning the incident, Telangana BJP president and Lok Sabha member Bandi Sanjay Kumar said Nagaraju was targeted because he married a Muslim woman and dubbed it as a “religious murder.” He demanded that the culprits should be identified and “the forces and organisations behind them be made public”.
In a statement, he asked as to why the so-called secular parties and secular intellectuals were not responding on such a ghastly murder, even as he stated that his party is described as communal when it referred to certain religiously fanatic outfits allegedly indulging in ‘love jihad”.
‘Love jihad’ is a term used by the saffron party and right-wing organisations to claim religious conversion of non-Muslim women, mainly Hindus in the guise of love by Muslim men.
The ‘pseudo-secularists’ should tell people what type of incident the present murder is, he said. Kumar also asked as to why “progressive people” and “progressive media” who were vociferous over “honour killing” at Miryalguda in the past were tight-lipped now.
The BJP leader, known for his strong Hindutva views, also said the Hindu society should condemn such incidents and question communal forces and organisations and the so-called secular parties.
Condemning the incident, some organisations raised slogans demanding justice. The couple had got married at Arya Samaj in Old City of Hyderabad on January 31.