Mob lynches city techie on child-lifting suspicion
Mob suspected the four people to be child-kidnappers
A software professional from Hyderabad was lynched while three of his friends including a Qatar national were thrashed by a mob which suspected them to be child-kidnappers, at Kamalnagar in Bidar district of Karnataka.
The victim was identified as Mohd Azam, 32, who is married and has a two-year-old son. He was an employee of Google in Gachibowli and was a resident of Errakunta on the outskirts.
According to Azam’s family members, he and his friends including the Qatar national Mohd Salaam Eid Al Kubaisi of Royalwadi in Barkas, Noor Mohammed and Salman had gone to Murki village in Bidar to attend a function at a friend’s place. The group was travelling in a car and stopped near a government school for a break in the Kamalnagar police station area.
“Salaam had brought chocolates from Qatar and offered them to some children who were coming out of the school. Villagers who saw this tried to catch them but the group noticed them and tried to flee. They were stopped by a mob at another village and assaulted,” Mr Mohd Aslam, Azam’s younger brother said.
A software professional from Hyderabad was lynched while three of his friends including a Qatar national were thrashed by a mob which suspected them to be child-kidnappers, at Kamalnagar in Bidar district of Karnataka.
Reports reaching here said that the villages had set up road blocks to prevent the group from escaping.
Azam, who was brutally thrashed by the mob, succumbed to his injuries at the spot while Salaam, Noor Mohammed and Salam who sustained serious injuries were shifted to a hospital by the police. The villagers staged a protest at the place demanding that the police initiate action against the persons who they suspected were child kidnappers.
One of the survivors said that the villagers were unwilling to listen to their explanation. “The police reached the spot very late and failed to control the villagers. The mob grew as time passed and they all wanted to kill us,” he told his relative at Yashoda Hospital.
The Bidar police said 32 people were detained for their involvement in the incident, including administrators of a Whatsapp group.
The police said that villages had set up road blocks in the area after they mistook the group to be kidnappers.
“While trying to escape, their car collided with a two-wheeler, escalating the tension,” an official of Bidar police said.
Salaam and Salman were admitted at the Yashoda Hospital in Malakpet in the city. Doctors treating the injured said that their condition is stable and they are recovering. The victims are under observation.