On suspicion of being child lifters a labourer was lynched to death, while eight others were injured in an attack by a mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi district on Sunday evening.
After mob lynching in the name of cow slaughter, it is rumours of child lifting that are fueling similar incidents in Uttar Pradesh, where several such cases have been reported in August.
A video shot by an eyewitness shows a severely injured man, covered in dust, writhing on the ground. A group of people surround him and shout at him. Another video shows four policemen carrying a man away by his hands and legs from a paddy field.
According to reports, a group of labourers from Pratapgarh were drinking at a liquor shop. They got into an argument with a drunk person there and thrashed him to death.
Amethi, Superintendent of Police, Khyati Garg, said, “The labourers thrashed the man till he died. They were trying to shove the body into their vehicle when a villager saw them from a distance and assumed they were kidnapping a child.”
The villagers immediately descended on the spot and started beating them up. The injured have been admitted to a hospital and the deceased man’s body has been sent for post-mortem.
The police said they have been meeting village heads and making public announcements to guard against the rumours that could escalate into mob killings.
Last week in Sambhal, a man suspected of being a child lifter, was thrashed to death by a mob . According to reports, two brothers had taken their nephew to a doctor for treatment when a mob, suspecting them to be child-lifters, caught hold of them. Both were dragged to a field, where they were ruthlessly beaten.
In Ghaziabad also a woman was thrashed by mob last week. She was taking her grandson for shopping when she was mistaken for a child kidnapper. A video of the woman being thrashed by the mob was also circulated on social media.