Man Filmed Hacking, Burning Another To Death Over 'Love Jihad' In India

Police in western India arrested a man Thursday for attacking another man in an apparent religious hate crime.

A horrifying video of the incident showed the attacker hacking the victim to death with an ax and then setting the body on fire, while keeping up a communal rant. The killing took place in the western state of Rajasthan Wednesday.

Police identified the suspect as a Hindu and his victim to be a Muslim and a laborer.

The main accused, Shambhulal Regar, shared a grisly video of the incident that allegedly was shot by his nephew. In a second video, he was seen justifying the incident, to "stop him [the laborer] from Love Jihad," a term coined to describe an alleged plot where Muslim men lure girls of other religions to marry them and force them to convert to Islam.

Internet services were suspended in parts of the state and people were urged by the police to stop sharing the video.

According to Indian news channel NDTV, Regar was arrested Thursday and his 14-year-old nephew is also being held. The victim was identified as 45-year-old Mohammad Afrazul, a daily wager from the state of West Bengal, according to the Indian Express.

His half-burnt body was found near a hotel in Rajsamand, Rajasthan, on Wednesday.

A senior police official from Rajashthan, Pankaj Kumar Singh, was quoted by the Indian Express as saying: "During preliminary investigations, we have come to know that one of the videos in which Regar makes the inflammatory statements was shot in a local temple a little while after he murdered Afrazul." He added that a two-wheeler belonging to Afrazul was found at the scene of the crime.

Senior police official Anand Srivastava told the BBC that the man had shared several "hateful" videos on social media. He added that police believed the accused and his victim did not know each other and did not share a history of animosity.

"We have found that nobody from Shambu Lal's family had an inter-religious marriage. He has used inflammatory statements in these videos. To avoid any violence, we have been organizing meetings between the two communities," Srivastava said.

Afrazul’s wife Gul Bahar Bibi told the Indian Express: "We want those who killed my husband so brutally and showed it to the world be hanged. I want Insaaf (justice). He was only killed because he was a Muslim. Yesterday, at around 3 pm, we received a call from Rajasthan Police and were told that my husband has been murdered."

According to Scroll.in, Regar’s wife Sita claimed that he was mentally unstable and addicted to marijuana. However, Srivastava said the police "found no reason to believe that Regar was mentally unstable" and that "it doesn’t look like Regar was addicted to drugs" because he had a "fairly successful marble trading business" till a year ago.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also expressed her shock and tweeted saying: "We strongly condemn the heinous killing of a laborer from Bengal in Rajasthan. How can people be so inhuman? Sad."

The recent spate of attacks on Muslims in India, according to an Associated Press report, was related to the trade in cows, which many of India’s Hindus consider sacred. The slaughter of cows is also banned in many Indian states. Seven acts of mob violence killings have resulted in at least 10 Muslim deaths since May 2015 over allegations of buying or selling cows for beef, Human Rights Watch reported.