The two men arrested for allegedly killing a Muslim man transporting cows in Rajasthan’s Alwar city on Tuesday said they had mutilated Ummar Khan’s body to make it look like an accident, the police said. Ramveer Gujjar and Bhagwan Singh admitted they are gau rakshaks and confessed to the assault, The Indian Express reported.

The duo shot the Muslim dairy farmer dead on November 10. Khan and another person, named Tahir, were transporting cows from Alwar to Bharatpur when they were attacked. Khan’s mutilated body was found on the railway tracks that evening.

“They told us they spotted an empty pickup truck passing through their village and suspected it would return with cows,” Alwar Additional Superintendent of Police Mool Singh Rana said, adding that the two men planned to stop it if returned with cows.

“When it did, they first threw nails in its path, but the truck moved for a few metres,” Rana said, adding that the duo accused Khan and Tahir of firing at them first, after which they retaliated.

The police also claimed that Khan and Tahir were cow smugglers, and that the truck they were using was stolen from Uttar Pradesh. Tahir, however, said they had bought milch cows from Dausa. The village Sarpanch said theirs was a village of dairy farmers.