A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy, Basit Khan, who was doing a part-time job in Jaipur to support his family was thrashed by a mob on the night of 5 February. Khan succumbed to his injuries at 8:30 pm on the night of 6 February and, by the afternoon of 7 February, his body was sent via a private ambulance to Kashmir.
Basit belonged to a poor family from Kupwara in Kashmir. His father died a year ago. He was the oldest in the house, with three younger sisters and a brother. “The family has had to pay Rs 30,000 to get the body to Kashmir. They are very poor and he had come here to work to help the family financially. He was in class 11 and was doing part-time work at an events company to make some money.”
Basit and Rafiq, both from Kashmir, went to work at an event on the evening of 5 February. When they returned, they got into a fight with a few other boys on the organising team. “Basit wanted to sit in front as he was tired. This enraged Maslooq, a boy from Mumbai and he held on to Basit’s collar. They started beating him up. One of the boys, Aditya, was repeatedly hitting Basit on the head,” Rafiq, an eyewitness to the beating, told The Quint.
Rafiq said they held him down so he could not help Basit. “After beating him, he and I walked and walked. He kept falling. As soon as we reached home he began to cry. Then he started vomiting. In the cab on the way to the hospital, he fell unconscious.”
Rafiq said the doctors operated on him but said his chances of survival were meagre. He died at 8:30 pm on 6 February.
“These boys who were present there dissuaded me from filing the FIR. When I said I was definitely going to, another boy straight up threatened me. He said, “Tum mein se ek coma mein hai, tera number bhi aajayega (One of you is already in coma, you will be next).”
Rajasthan Police has arrested one person in the case as of now. “His name is Aditya and as per the complaint, he is the one who hit Basit on his head repeatedly,” a police official said. He added the investigation in the case is underway and the accused will be arrested.