New Delhi: A mob attacked the house of a Muslim family in Haryana’s Rohtak on Wednesday, accusing them of beating a calf to death. The mob suspected that the calf was to be slaughtered on the occasion of Eid-ul-Zuha.

According to Naseeruddin, a local, rumour of cow slaughter spread after Yamin Khokhar, a resident Rohtak’s Titoli village, hit a calf with a stick when it injured his daughter. “The calf walked a few steps and then died,” he told the The Hindustan Times. “But some anti-social elements spread the rumour that Muslims had killed for Bakr Eid. Yamin and his family fled the village apprehending trouble.”

After attacking Khokhar’s house, the mob forcibly buried the calf’s carcass at the Muslim burial ground and asked the community to build a cow shelter at the site.

Based on a complaint by village sarpanch Suresh Kumar, Khokhar, his brother Yasin and their neighbour Shokeen were later arrested after they reached the police station. Speaking to The Hindu over phone, Kumar said tension gripped the village as the news of the incident spread. Subsequently, a mob allegedly attacked Yameen’s house, forcing the family to flee. Rohtak superintendent of Police Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said the police had not received formal complaint from the victims.

Muslim Ekta Manch chairman Hazi Shahzad Khan said a few Muslim families in Rohtak he spoke with told him that Yameen had hit the calf in self-defence after the calf attacked him. And that the death of the calf was an unintentional.

More than 50 policemen have been deployed in the village to prevent any untoward incident as rumours against the Muslim community were spread through WhatsApp messages.