The Asian Age

Mob kills 2 youth over child lifting suspicion

Sound engineers were on a picnic

- MANOJ ANAND

In what has come as shocker for the civil society in Assam, two youth from Guwahati, on a pleasure trip to picturesqu­e Karbi Anglong Hills district in central Assam, were lynched on Friday night by a mob that turned barbaric after suspecting the duo to be child lifters.

The incident was the fall out of a rumour circulated on social media about the movement of child- lifters in the state.

One of the attackers in the mob recorded the entire act on his mobile and circulated in on social media, in which one of the youth, Nilotpal Das, was seen pleading before the attackers that he was an Assamese from Guwahati. With folded hands, Niloptal was heard while pleading for life —- “Don’t kill me… please don’t beat me. I am an Assamese. Believe me, I am speaking the truth. My father’s name is Gopal Chandra Das… please let me go.” The mob looked reluctant to listen their plea and continued beating Nilotpal and his friend Abhijit Nath, who were working as sound engineers in Goa, with bamboo sticks and kicks.

In what has come as shocker for the civil society in Assam, two youths from Guwahati on a pleasure trip to picturesqu­e Karbi Anglong hills, were lynched by a mob in central Assam.

The incident turned barbaric suspecting the duo as child lifters on Friday night. The attack was the fallout of a rumor circulated on social media about the movement of childlifte­rs in the state.

One of the attackers the mob recorded the entire barbaric act on his mobile and circulated in the social media in which one of the youths, Nilotpal Das, was seen pleading before the attackers that he was an Assamese from Guwahati. With folded hands, Niloptal was heard pleading for life: “Don’t kill me… please don’t beat me. I am an Assamese. Believe me, I am speaking the truth. My father’s name is Gopal Chandra Das and mother’s name is Radhika Das… please let me go.”

The mob, as seen in the video, looked reluctant to listen their pleas and continued beating Nilotpal and his friend Abhijit Nath, who were working as sound engineer in Goa, with bamboo sticks and kicks.

The Scorpio in which they were traveling was also badly damaged in the attack by the mob. The tragedy happened at around 7.40 pm on Friday evening Kangthilan­gso, Dengaon, where the two friends had gone for a day.

While on their way earlier in the day, Nilotpal and Abhijit had asked some local villagers about the directions to Kangthilan­gso village where they had gone for the day. According to reports, few villagers suspected them to be child lifters and alerted others in the area. In the evening, when they were returning home, the villagers stopped them and lynched.

According to reports in local media, when one friend of Nilotpal from Guwahati had called him at around 8 pm on Friday, a different person picked up the phone and said that Nilotpal has been killed.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, taking the cognisance of the brutal incident directed the additional DGP ( Law and Order) Mukesh Agarwal to rush to spot and arrest all those involve in the crime.

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