India
The crime that shocked the nation came to light after the perpetrator filmed the incident on Dev heritage road in Rajnagar area and uploaded it on the social media.
Updated : Dec 11, 2017, 09:14 AM IST
A daughter of the 48-year-old Muslim labourer Mohammad Afrazul from West Bengal who was hacked and burnt to death in Rajasthan's Rajsamand, has termed her father as a hero of the family and said that she doesn't know what love jihad means.
Afrazul was killed by Shambu Lal Raigar who was seen in the videos ranting against "love jihad", a term used by sections of Hindu activists to describe marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men, who they claim seek to propagate Islam.
“Our father was always away, but used to call us everyday. We were sad that he was never home but we knew he was doing that to feed us," Afrazul’s second daughter Rejina told Indian Express.
Stating that she doesn't know what love-jihad is, she added, "All I know is that my father was a family man who worked hard for us.”
According to report, Afrazul left home at the age of 14 and worked as daily wage labourer for three decades and educated his family members.
"He has always sacrificed just to keep the family running. He is the hero of the family," said Afzarul’s elder brother Muhammed Tafazzul Hussain Khan.
“There was no factory here then… there still isn’t. So the only way left for him and us was to leave the state,” says Tafazzul.
Afrazul’s younger brother said that hard he was a hard-working man who ate less and saved for the family.
In his videos, Shambu Lal Raigar had referred to a woman he called his “Hindu sister who he had tried to save from love jihad”. That woman, however, has denied any link, saying that she went to West Bengal with one Mohammed Bablu Sheikh, a resident of Malda, in 2010, but returned to Rajasthan in 2013 on her own.
Meanwhile, the Rajasthan Director General of Police (DGP) said the prima facie reports cited the man seen in the video was not a 'normal human being', and a further investigation has been initiated in the matter.
The Rajasthan government also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh to the family of the victim, while the West Bengal government provided widow pension to the deceased's wife and assured employment to the kin.