Singrauli: Unfounded rumours, fuelled by WhatsApp messages, of being a child lifter led to the mob lynching of a young tribal woman in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh late on Saturday night.
Out of the 12 accused of beating the woman to death, nine have been arrested, the Singrauli police said. The victim who is said to be in her mid-twenties is yet to be identified.
“The locals had intercepted a woman on being suspicious of her being a child lifter. After initially questioning her, they beat her to death,” an officer involved in the probe said.
The battered body of the deceased was found dumped close to a forest department nursery in village Bhos in Morwa region.
In the recent past, stepping up their vigilance against WhatsApp rumours, the police have averted four such lynchings in Singrauli and Balaghat districts.
In mid-June, two youths were nearly lynched by a frenzied mob in Balaghat but the police action saved their lives. A week later, a Nat (street artist) was also bashed by the mob and so was a government surveyor but were saved due to quick police action.
Post this, a woman forest officer and a low rung employee were also beaten up by the crowd in Singrauli. The police again played the saviour.
It all started when an alleged video of some organ mafia started to circulate in MP’s Seoni, Balaghat, Singrauli and Dindori and some adjoining areas of Chhattisgarh that child-lifter rumours gained momentum, leading to several such mob attacks on innocent persons.
The MP Police have issued advisory against such messages and in the month of June even booked a local journalist Ashish Upadhyay from Singrauli on charges of circulating unfounded messages on social media.
Besides MP, several other states too have seen such mob lynchings fuelled by baseless rumours of late.
Comments
0 comment