Around 3 am on November 11, a man approached 21-year-old auto driver Rashid, and claimed he urgently needed to drop someone in the auto. A few minutes after Rashid started the vehicle, four or five more men got into the auto, and took Rashid farther away. “It was not too far from my house. They tied me up, stripped me, and started beating me up,” Rashid tells TNM, “I still don’t know who they were, except for the man who approached me. I don’t know why they assaulted me.”
A week since the incident, Rashid – a native of Muttungal in Vadakara of Kozhikode district – is still struggling to recover. However, the police have not made any arrests so far. “The one who approached me is an acquaintance of mine, and the men seemed to have planned the attack,” he says.
When they were beating him up, the assailants claimed that it was because of his relationship with a woman in the neighbourhood, Rashid says. But the young man and his family believe there might be a different motive. “The girl whom I love is from the same religion, and financially, too, we belong to the same class. I suspect there could be a hidden reason,” he says.
“We don’t think that he was beaten up because of the love affair, though that was what they claimed. The attack has terrified all of us,” says Rashid’s father Majeed.
Jeevan George the Sub Inspector investigating the case also says that the reason behind the attack could be something else. The police however is yet to nab the accused. The Vadakara police have recorded Rashid’s statement.
The assailants used a sword and a bamboo stick, and Rashid was has injuries on his hands and his neck. His hands have been fractured, and was discharged from hospital a couple of days ago. His cousin Fariz, who tried to rescue him, also got injured.