In a shocking incident, a Class 12 student in Haryana's Faridabad was chased and shot dead by cow vigilantes who mistook him for a cattle smuggler.
Five members of a cow vigilante group have been arrested for the attack, police said, adding the accused have been identified as Anil Kaushik, Varun, Krishna, Adesh, and Saurabh.
The incident occurred on the Delhi-Agra highway on August 23.
According to reports, the accused cow vigilantes had received information that some cattle smugglers in Renault Duster and Toyota Fortuner cars are picking up cattle in the area.
The accused spotted a Duster car at Patel Chowk in which the victim Aryan Mishra was travelling along with his friends, Shanky and Harshit.
Mistaking them for cattle smugglers, the group chased their car for about 30 kilometers near Gadhpuri.
The cow vigilantes asked them to stop the car, but Aryan and his friends did not stop, as Shanky had a rivalry with some other people and they thought they had sent goons to kill them.
As the car did not stop, the vigilantes opened fire from the back and a bullet hit Aryan near the neck. The accused shot Aryan again when the car stopped as they suspected that victim's friends might fire back at them.
However, when the accused saw two women inside the car, they fled after realising that they had shot the wrong person. Aryan was rushed to a nearby hospital, but he died a day later.
The accused are currently in police custody and further investigation is underway.
