Unruly Mob Rule, After Assam Nightmare, Man Suspected To Be Child-Lifter Lynched In Chhattisgarh

An unidentified man was beaten to death by unruly mob on suspicion of being a child-lifter in Chhattisgarh's Sarguja district on Friday, June 22. According to the police, the incident took place at Mendrakla village.

The 40-year-old victim arrived in the village in the morning, but when people asked him who he was and where he was coming from, he could give no answers.

As the rumours about child-lifters were swirling around in the area, the villagers thought the man to be a part of the child-lifter gang and beat him to death with sticks. The police have arrested close to 10 people from the village and further probe is underway.

The official said the police was visiting villages in the area and asking people not to believe the rumours. One such meeting had been held at Mendrakla village too, he said.

In a case of people losing their lives due to fake news on social media, two men from Assam were lynched to death on suspicion of being child-lifters on June 10. Two men were killed by mob in Maharashtra Aurangabad.

Indiatimes

In perhaps the most numbing case of lynching so far, a sound engineer from Mumbai, Nilotpal Das (29) and his businessman friend Abhijeet Nath (30) were beaten to death on Friday evening in Karbi Anglong district by a mob which mistook the duo for child-lifters. One of the attackers even recorded the act of barbarism and circulated it online.

"For the past few days, a Facebook post was being circulated that some child lifters have come to Assam. What happened in Karbi Anglong was a tragic fallout of people falling for such rumours," said Assam DGP Kuladhar Saikia.

NCRB to publish lynching data

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) will publish a data on lynching in the Crime in India, 2017 Edition, reported Boomlive.in. This will be the first time the bureau will be publishing the data of this kind.

Going through multiple media reports, 14 cases of mob lynching have led to the death of at least 21 people in the year 2018. Of the 14 cases, 11 were reported to have occurred based on suspicions of child kidnapping, 3 for alleged theft.

Take a look at data compiled by BOOM:

BOOMLIVE.IN

Data compiled by The Quint points to around 99 deaths due to mob lynching since 2015. Indiatimes cannot independently verify these numbers. However, there is no denying that division on the basis of religion, cow vigilantism and rumour mongering have exacerbated killings in the past few years.

An NCRB official was quoted at the time saying, ¡°With so much going on, we thought it would be prudent to collect authentic data on lynching across the country and analyse the reasons that actually lead to murderous behaviour by mobs. This, we hope, will help policymakers come up with cogent solutions for such ghastly incidents. Data is the first step to formation of policy on any subject¡±.