NEW DELHI: Tauseef Ahmad, father of the Indian cricketer’s Mohammed Shami, said his family is in “danger” and that the beef issue is being used to target them.

On Thursday, Shami’s brother Mohammad Haseeb was booked for “pressuring cops” to release a few men arrested on charges of cow slaughter. He was later released on bail. Haseeb said the charges were fabricated.

Sources said the case against Haseeb was registered under the influence of a group with interest in dragging his family in controversy.

“I had gone there to find out what was going on. I went there much later when the police had already arrived to apparently arrest some alleged cow slaughterers. Later I was told, much to my shock, that I had fought with the police and released those allegedly involved in cow slaughter,” Haseeb told The Hindu on phone from Amroha.

Ahmad said that his family was the target of conspiracies since his son Shami started playing for India.

“This is a completely false allegation. The issue is being used to unnecessarily target us. Since the time Shami started playing for India there is a group who want to drag our family in controversy or the other by hook or crook,” Ahmad said.

Meanwhile, a Muslim couple was among passengers assaulted by at least seven members of the Gauraksha Samiti at Khirkiya railway station, in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh, when they objected to their luggage being searched on suspicion that they were carrying beef, police said.

Police said the right-wing activists claimed to have seized “beef” from a bag during the “raid” on the general compartment of the Kushinagar Express before laboratory tests proved it was buffalo meat.

Police have arrested two members of the Samiti who claimed they acted on a tip-off about beef being transported by some passengers.

Nine local residents, including at least one relative of the couple, were also arrested and released on bail after they engaged in a scuffle with the Samiti members on the platform.