Four arrested for attack on Kashmiri dry-fruit sellers in Lucknow

The accused, all of them belonging to a local right-wing group, had assaulted the two for being Kashmiris. This is the latest incident in a series of attacks on people from India's northernmost state in the wake of the Pulwama attack that was carried out by a 19-year-old from Jammu and Kashmir.

The arrested have been identified as Bajrang Sonkar, Amar Kumar, Anirudh Kumar and Himanshu Garg of Vishwa Hindu Dal, media reports said.

Former Jammu and Kashmir CMs condemn attack

Earlier, former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti criticised the tattack on two Kashmiri dry-fruit vendors in Lucknow.

Abdullah, the leader of National Conference (NC), tweeted: "Nothing will do more damage to the idea of India in J&K than videos like these. Keep thrashing Kashmiris like this on the streets at the hands of RSS/Bajrang Dal goons & then try to sell the idea of 'atoot ang', it simply wont fly."

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, "Kashmiris are being hounded & punished. The culprits here were clad in saffron kurtas & are from VHD. They have no fear & in fact uploaded the video on SM. GoIs conspicuous silence is actually a political tactic to encourage such elements & communalise the atmosphere until polls."

Local residents helped the Kashmiris

According to an NDTV report, the incident happened at 5pm on Wednesday and the assaulters are be heard in saying in the videos that they were doing it because the victims were from Kashmir.

Local residents reportedly rushed to the spot and rescued the two men.

One man was seen in the video stopping the attackers and asking them to call the police if they had any problems and not take law into their own hands.

Image Credit: Screen grab