Five lynched...
Scores of incidents of locals thrashing “suspicious-looking” innocents have been reported from different states in the past month or so. Lynchings have been reported from West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha in the past two months.
Dadaji Bhuse, Maharashtra’s minister of state for cooperation and guardian minister of Dhule, visited the spot on Sunday and took the stock of the situation. He also visited the district hospital where the post-mortem was conducted on the bodies of the victims. “The victims are originally from Solapur and belong to a nomadic tribe. The families were living in a makeshift hutment in Pimpalner,” he said.
Minister of state for home (rural) Deepak Kesarkar appealed to the general public to not believe social media posts and rumours. “Strict action will be taken against rumour-mongers,” he said. Kesarkar will visit Rainpada on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Opposition has slammed the state government for what it says is a failure of law and order. “Lynching cases are being repeatedly reported in the state because of social media rumours. This is a result of the state government’s failure in taking precautionary measures,” said state Congress chief Ashok Chavan. NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said the state government should have taken precautions after similar cases were reported elsewhere in the state.
Prior to the Dhule incident, an activist hired by the Tripura government to quell social media rumours of child-lifters was killed on June 28. According to Smriti Ranjan Das, Tripura’s assistant inspector general of police, “A mob attacked Sukanta Chakravarty’s vehicle at Kalachhara when he was returning to Sabroom.” Chakravarty died, while the vehicle’s driver escaped with serious injuries. He was recruited by the state’s information and culture department to campaign against social media rumour-mongering following the death of two persons in a lynching incident only a day before.
On June 8, two persons were killed in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, also on suspicion of being child-lifters. Local police said a mob of around 1500 attacked a group of people suspecting them to be part of a kidnapping gang, killing two and injuring seven.
The first of such attacks took place on May 20 in Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh where one died and 12 people were injured. Another attack took place the next day in which another person - a beggar - was killed. On May 24, a construction worker from Rajasthan was killed in Karnataka. Odisha has seen 15 separate mob incidents related to suspected child-lifting since May 24, in which 28 persons were injured but no deaths were reported.