“My vehicle was overtaken by another. Two people came out of it and started beating me. They slapped me and asked me to chant ‘Modi zindabad’. They kicked and pulled my beard too.”

Sikar, Rajasthan: A 52-year-old auto-rickshaw driver was severely beaten up after he refused to chant “Modi zindabad” and “Jai Shri Ram” in Rajasthan’s Sikar in India.

Gaffar Ahmed Kacchawa lodged a complaint with the police that the two men stole his wristwatch and money, broke his teeth, and left him with a swollen eye and injuries on face after he refused to say “Jai Shri Ram”, “Modi Zindabad”.

The two men who attacked him also pulled his beard and asked him to “go to Pakistan”, “My vehicle was overtaken by another. Two people came out of it and started beating me. They slapped me and asked me to chant ‘Modi zindabad’.

They kicked and pulled my beard too,” Mr. Kacchawa told.According to the First Information Report (FIR), around 4 am on Friday, Mr. Kacchawa was returning after dropping passengers at a nearby village when the two men in a car stopped him and asked him for tobacco.However, they declined to take the tobacco he offered and allegedly asked him to chant “Modi zindabad” and “Jai Shri Ram”, the police said. On his refusal, they thrashed him with a stick.

Pushpendra Singh, a senior police officer in Sikar, told “We arrested two people on Friday after the complaint was lodged. Preliminary investigation suggests that the accused misbehaved and thrashed the victim under the influence of alcohol.”