45-year cab driver, Aftab Alam, a resident of Trilokpuri, Noida, who had gone to drop one of his old clients at Bulandshahr, was brutally killed on Sunday midnight for not chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’.
According to Aftab Alam’s 20-year-old son, Mohammad Sabir, he received an unusual call from his father, who didn’t utter a word after he picked up the phone. Sabir felt that something was wrong and he began to record the call.
On the other end of the phone, he heard the attackers asked his name. They also repeatedly asked his father to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. And they all seemed to be drunk, also they asked if he would like to drink and in reply, Alam said ‘no’, Sabir heard.
In the audio file of the call available at 8:39 minutes, one of the men can be heard saying “Jai Shri Ram bol, bol Jai Shri Ram”.
After some time his son heard no conversation. But 11 minutes later, at the 19:41 minute mark, one of the attackers can be heard saying, “Saans ruk gayi” (He has stopped breathing).
He then recorded the call for the next 40 minutes. The call got disconnected a few minutes later and Alam’s phone was found to be switched off after that. He immediately went to the nearest police station.
Sabir’s statement read, “My father had gone to drop one of his old clients at Bulandshahr yesterday at around 3 pm. He made the drop at around 7 pm and left for home. On the way, he called me and told me to recharge his FastTag. I did that at around 7:30 pm and then after a while, I got a call again, I think this was from near a toll booth. He had probably sensed that some men he had come across were not the right sort of people, so he called me and possibly put the mobile phone in his pocket.”
“Sub-inspector Sanjay sir helped me when I told him about the matter. He immediately started tracking my father’s mobile phone and accessed the last location of the SIM card,” said.
Later, police called him to inform them that they had found the lifeless body of his father tied to the side of his own car.
“His tongue area was badly bruised, ears were bleeding, and there was a big cut on his face. This is clearly a case of mob lynching. We are Muslims, but we have a right to live,” Sabir said.
But, the Badalpur police have only registered a robbery case. The Badalpur police registered an FIR charging the anonymous assaulters under sections 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender).
Aftab Alam is survived by a wife, three sons, ailing parents and two siblings. His last rites were performed on Monday.