Akhlaq was lynched by his neighbors in Bishahra village in Dadri last September over rumours of him and his family having eaten beef.

A local court in Surajpur on Thursday directed the Greater Noida police to register a case of cow slaughter against Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi and his family under the UP Cow Protection Act, 1955.

Akhlaq was > lynched by his neighbors in Bishahra village in Dadri last September over rumours of him and his family > having eaten beef.

The court order came in response to a petition of some of the accused in the Akhlaq murder case who > sought an FIR against Akhlaq and his family for alleged cow slaughter.

The accused had petitioned the court under Section 156(3) of CrPC with a request to direct the police to lodge an FIR. Their plea named seven persons as accused, including Mohammad Akhlaq, his wife Ikraman, mother Asghari, brother Jaan Mohammad, daughter Shaishta and son Danish.

Ram Sharan Nagar, the counsel of the accused who petitioned the court seeking an FIR against Akhlaq's family for alleged cow slaughter, told The Hindu, “We had requested the court to order registration of an FIR against Akhlaq and his family as they had slaughtered a cow and stored its meat, violating the UP Cow Protection Act, 1955”. The detailed court order is awaited.

Also read: >How the events unfolded

The forensic report from a Mathura lab had in June declared that the meat at the centre of the lynching > was beef. A recovery memo prepared by the police, however, revealed that the meat sample that was declared as beef by the Mathura lab was collected not from Akhlaq’s house but from the place where the mob allegedly gathered to attack Akhlaq.

Armed with the forensic report which declared the flesh to be “beef”, some of the 18 accused arrested for allegedly killing Akhlaq had gone to court, seeking registration of an FIR against Akhlaq's family for alleged cow slaughter.

Back in June, a group of BJP and Shiv Sena leaders had > defied the prohibitory orders in place in Dadri and held a meeting in Bishahra. They demanded an FIR action against Alkhlak's family and issued an ultimatum of twenty days to the administration for registration of a case of cow slaughter.

Sanjay Rana, a local BJP leader and father of Vishal Rana, an accused in Akhlaq's lynching case had said in the meeting, “We had been yelling at the top of our voices that a cow was slaughtered, but nobody listened to us then. That has been established now by the forensic report. The logical thing would be to do justice and punish the guilty by registering a case against Akhlaq and his family for slaughtering a cow.”

Yusif Saifi, the lawyer of Akhlaq's family, however, said that he would challenge the order in higher court. "The court has repeatedly said that the case here is that of murder and forensic report had no implication on the case. All the accused persons have admitted their roles in Akhlaq's murder. So, we will challenge the order in higher court,” Saifi said.

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