A man was severely beaten up in a Jharkhand village about 200 km from state capital Ranchi, after a dead cow was allegedly found outside his house. The mob that attacked Usman Ansari also set his house on fire.

Mr Ansari is in a hospital in Dhanbad, saved by the timely arrival of the police, who fired gunshots to disperse the mob.

"Our men braved the crowd and immediately rescued Ansari and his family members. When the police tried to take him to hospital, there was resistance from the crowd. There was heavy stone-pelting. We had to open fire in the air," said a senior police officer RK Mullik.

Two men were injured, both in the legs, in the police firing and are in hospital too. About 50 policemen are also reported injured in the stone throwing.

There is heavy security in the village, with senior police officers deployed to ensure law and order. No one has been arrested so far for the attack on Mr Ansari, but the police said they will question about 15 people in the village today.

With incidents of cow vigilantism on the rise, union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said earlier this week that the government "is very clear that if anyone indulges in violence, then the law will have to do its job."

He was speaking about the murder of a 16-year-old boy Junaid Khan by a mob that accused him and his brothers of carrying beef in a train near Delhi.

In April, a Muslim dairy farmer was lynched in Rajasthan for allegedly smuggling cows.

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