The death of a local Janata Dal United leader, Kahlil Alam, in Bihar’s Samastipur district that police had attributed to a dispute over money is now being alleged to have been a case of lynching over beef consumption.

Videos have been widely shared on social media since Monday night purportedly showing Alam, 34, being abused, assaulted with a cane, kicked and pulled by the hair by a group that accused him of consuming beef. The group is seen asking him how many times he had eaten the meat, from where he procured it and at what price and if he had offered it to his children.

If the videos are genuine, it will mean that the cow vigilantes were not deterred even by Alam’s political affiliation. Nitish Kumar’s JDU is the ruling party in Bihar, running the government in alliance with the BJP.

Alam was considered close to senior JDU leader and state education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary.

Alam had been reported missing on February 16. The police found his body burnt and buried on the bank of the Burhi Gandak river on February 18. The police said Alam was killed over a dispute over money he had borrowed from some people. They had portrayed it as an “open-and-shut” case.

In the videos, in which the faces of the perpetrators are not visible, Alam appears petrified and also seeks forgiveness for having eaten beef. The videos were first shared on Instagram and became viral on other social media platforms too.

After a furore over the videos, the police said they would look into them but stuck to their stand that Alam had been killed over a money dispute, claiming that the attackers had deliberately brought in the beef angle to create communal tensions.

“We have registered an FIR and have been conducting raids since Monday night. We have identified five persons as the accused and two of them have been arrested so far. They are being interrogated. Further investigations are going on,” Samastipur superintendent of police Hriday Kant told The Telegraph.

The SP added that the police had requested Instagram to pull down the videos on Alam as they could be used to damage communal harmony.

“The investigation till now points to a dispute over money that Alam had borrowed from the accused and was not returning…. The accused took him to a secluded place and killed him. They burnt the body and buried it…… They had deliberately questioned and tortured him over eating beef to create communal tension and divert the attention of the people and the police in an attempt to escape unscathed. We will be able to say more after the investigation is over,” Hriday Kant said.

JDU MLC and spokesperson Neeraj Kumar told The Telegraph: “I have not been updated on this matter. I am outside Patna.”

JDU Samastipur district president Durgesh Rai also said he was not abreast of the latest developments in the case. “Alam was a block-level leader of our party. I just know that he was murdered a few days ago and two persons have been arrested till now. The law will take its own course and those who killed him will be arrested,” Rai said.

Alam’s family members told journalists that some people had demanded money when his wife had called on his mobile phone on February 16 and 17.

“They had threatened to kill him if we did not give money. We later told them that we were ready to do so, but afterwards his cellphone was switched off. We informed the personal assistant of minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary on February 17. The police then swung into action and found his body,” Alam’s brother Muhammad Sitare said.