Self proclaimed gau-rakshaks or cow vigilantes beat up two men and a woman on suspicion of carrying beef and forced them to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' on May 22, 2019 in Madhya Pradesh's Seoni district.
While the woman and one of the men are Muslims, the other male victim is a Hindu.
Madhya Pradesh police have arrested the trio for allegedly carrying beef. Cow slaughter is illegal in the state. Meanwhile five people have been arrested for carrying out the attack.
Th shocking incident came to light after two videos of the incident went viral on social media on May 24, 2019.
One of the videos show the attackers pinning the male victim against a pole and assaulting him with a wooden stick. The other video shows a man, under duress from the attackers, hit the woman with a slipper while they force them to say 'Jai Shri Ram'.
BOOM was tagged by a few of our readers on Twitter to verify the video. We reached out to Superintendent of Police, Madhya Pradesh who directed us to speak to officials at the Dunda police station.
BOOM contacted the Dunda police station where another police official told us more about the incident on condition of anonymity.
"The incident is from May 22, (2019)," the police official said.
"A group of three people, two men and a woman, were allegedly carrying beef. A group of self-proclaimed cow-vigilantes were tipped off and they intercepted the trio and attacked them with laathis. "
He also told BOOM that after attacking the trio, the cow-vigilantes fled the spot warning the victims of dire consequences if they informed the police.
"However, we got news about the incident and we made the arrests. First, the trio was arrested on charges of carrying beef. Then we tracked the attackers and arrested all of them too," the cop said.
The meat seized has been sent to a forensic lab in Hyderabad to determine if it is beef, the police official said.
When asked whether the attackers had any political affiliations, the police official did not give a clear answer.
However, when we named a particular cow-vigilante group whose name has cropped up in connection with the attack, he said that one of the attackers was the member of the group.
"One of the attackers, a habitual offender, is a member of Shri Ram Sena" - A police official said on condition of anonymity
BOOM checked the Facebook profile of one of the attackers who according to a Twitter user - had posted the video on his timeline only to delete it later.
We found that Shubham Singh was the same person leading the attack in the video.
(Left) Screen grab from the viral video and (right) a profile picture from the Facebook page of the person who reportedly posted the video initially and later deleted it
Shubham Singh has also uploaded a photo with terror accused Pragya Thakur, who was recently elected as an MP from Bhopal, on his Facebook page.
Photo taken from Shubham Singh's Facebook profile Several other pictures on his Facebook profile show his connection with Shri Ram Sena.
BOOM is not sharing any of the videos due to their graphic content.