They men throw the cow from the bridge into the flooded river. (Representational)
A group of men was seen in a video thrashing a cow with sticks and throwing it off a bridge into a flooded river in Chhattisgarh's Janjgir-Champa district, prompting the police to arrest five men on Friday, officials said.
As the video went rival, the police swung into action and arrested five men, who are allegedly seen in the video, on animal cruelty charges, they said.
The incident, apparently triggered by damage to crops caused by the animal, took place on August 10 evening in Lalmati village under Hasaud police station limits of the district and its video surfaced on Thursday, police said.
In the video, a group of around a dozen people wre seen harassing the cow with its head covered with a sack on the bridge. Some of them are seen hitting the animal with sticks. They then throw the cow from the bridge into the flooded river.
Based on a complaint of cattle owner Shiv Kumar Sahu, a resident of nearby Bhedikona village, a case was registered against accused, said Yogesh Patel, Station House Officer (SHO), Hasaud police station.
Acting on the complaint, the police arrested five persons, two of them aged 18 and 19, and efforts were on to trace the other accused seen in the video, he said.
The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 429 (mischief by killing or maiming cattle), provisions of the Chhattisgarh Agricultural Cattle Preservation Act and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Patel said.
As per preliminary investigation, Sahu's cattle had earlier entered agriculture farms of the accused and damaged the standing crops. On Wednesday, when the accused spotted the cow near their farm, they allegedly harassed it, he said, adding further investigation was underway.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)