J’khand lynching: Seraikela DC, SP suspended over dereliction of duty

RANCHI Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das on Friday suspended Seraikela-Kharsawan district deputy commissioner (DC) and superintendent of police (SP) for allegedly failing to prevent the lynching of four men last month.

A government-appointed team — comprising of commissioner and Kolhan DIG – probing the lynching of four Muslim men on suspicion of child lifting on May 18, held the two officials guilty of dereliction of duty.

The probe team found that deputy commissioner Ramesh Gholap and SP Rakesh Bansal took five hours to cover 25 km and reach the crime spot after they were alerted.

According to the team, if the SP and DC had taken punitive actions on time, the four men could have been saved.

In all, nine people were lynched within a week from May 12 to May 18 on suspicion of being child lifers by mobs in the state’s Kolhan division.

Retweeting HT’s story on the lynching, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had asked PM Modi to speak on the growing lawlessness in BJP-ruled states in the country.

Various political leaders also visited the affected villages and asked the state government to take action against officials concerned. The government set up a two-member committee to probe the incident. The committee found superstition, cattle trade and WhatsApp messages to be the main factors that led to the lynching. It also found grave callousness on the part of the two administrative officials.