Ajmer police on Sunday arrested nine individuals accused of abducting a 21-year-old man and subjecting him to a brutal assault over an alleged community dispute. The arrests were made within 12 hours of a video of the incident going viral on social media.
Police stated that the video shows the victim, identified as Jeetu, tied to a tree, beaten, garlanded with shoes and slippers, and forced to drink urine.
"The crime was heinous, inhuman, and cruel. We constituted a team to investigate the case, and all nine accused were arrested within 12 hours," said Ajmer Superintendent of Police Harsh Vardhan Agarwala.
Jeetu, a 21-year-old resident of Babaicha under Gegal police station, filed a complaint late Saturday evening after the video began circulating online.
The accused have been identified as Prakesh Nath (23), Ravinder Nath (28), Ram Lal (23), Hemraj (24), Goru Nath (22), Vikram Nath (20), Devi Lal (43), Shayari (70), and Sugna (43).
"The video was uploaded online to spread fear in the community," a police official said. "A special team raided the houses of the accused and arrested them Sunday morning," he added.
Police sources revealed that the incident stemmed from anger over Jeetu's marriage to a divorced woman. "A woman who was previously married to one Mahendra of Beer village reportedly divorced him and married Jeetu. Her former in-laws demanded a settlement under the local 'Nata pratha', under which a woman's new partner has to pay her former husband," they said.
According to Jeetu's complaint, he had gone with another person to collect wood from a farmhouse around 9 am on Saturday. There, he was accosted by several of the accused who arrived in a pickup truck and forced him into the vehicle.
He was then taken to Beer village in Srinagar, where his ordeal of abuse and torture began. Jeetu further alleged that his abusers demanded Rs 5 lakh, asking him to call his family for the money or face further humiliation.
