Indian city tense after rapist’s lynching

NEW DELHI: Riot police Saturday patrolled a northeastern Indian city after the public lynching of a rape suspect, enforcing a round-theclock curfew for a second day as the killing was condemned as “barbaric and inhuman.”

The 35-year-old suspect, accused of raping a woman multiple times and arrested in late February, was dragged out of prison in Nagaland state by a mob before being beaten to death and strung up to a clock tower on Thursday.

Hundreds of riot police patrolled the streets of Dimapur district after authorities imposed a curfew, with Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang telling AFP that “the situation remained tense but... under control.”

Tensions have been rising in the district since Feb. 24 when police arrested the alleged rapist, Farid Khan, over the assault of a 19-year-old tribal woman.

Thousands of irate tribals on Thursday broke into a high security jail before dragging out the Bengali-speaking man, who was stripped and paraded for several miles, while men armed with sticks beat him to death.

Another man was shot dead by police after the mob refused to hand over his body, while 60 people were injured in the clashes, which saw attacks on properties belonging to Bengalispeaking residents.

“The act is barbaric, heinous and inhuman,” Tarun Gogoi, the chief minister of Khan’s home state of Assam, said of the lynching.

The mob as well as Nagaland’s government had earlier called him a Bangladeshi migrant.

“The manner in which the youth was dragged out of police custody and killed brutally by a mob on the streets is highly condemnable,” Gogoi said in a statement.

Khan’s brother Jamaluddin said the killing was “politically motivated” and accused police of “falsely implicating his brother on behest of Naga groups, who want to root out non-tribals from the state.”

The manner in which the youth was dragged out of police custody and killed brutally by a mob on the streets is highly condemnable.