Nazir Ahmed, who has a farmhouse in Bannerghatta, was shaken by the events that unfolded on Wednesday night when he and his sons were wrongly detained by the police on charges of slaughtering a cow. Outside the station, more than 20 gau rakshaks, who had lodged a complaint with the police, gathered to protest. It was later found that two oxen had been slaughtered, and not a cow.

“We are planning to file a counter complaint. Five to six men barged into our farmhouse on Wednesday and harassed us,” said Mohammed Masi, Nazir’s son. “They beat up my younger brother Fateh, who had come from Australia on vacation, while he was trying to take the video of the rampage on his mobile phone,” he added.

As part of Eid celebrations, Nazir Ahmed and his sons Mohammed Masi and Mohammed Fateh had slaughtered two oxen in their house in Bannerghata on Wednesday.

A neighbour alerted a local group of gau rakshaks under the impression that the family was slaughtering a cow. “The vigilantes stormed their house and damaged their car,” said Kaleemullah, of the Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike.

‘We’re planning to file a counter complaint.

Men barged into

our farmhouse and harassed us’