RANCHI: It was said that villagers gripped by fear of child-lifters have committed the crime of lynching but the ADG of the state made a shocking revelation that no child has either been stolen or went missing from the village in the last one year.
ADG R K Malik informed that there is neither a report lodged regarding the child theft nor a report of missing of the child.
The victims – Sheikh Naim, 35, Sheikh Sajju, 25, and Sheikh Siraj, 26, Sheikh Halim (28), in a group of four set off from Haldipokhar for Rajnagar to buy cattle when their car was intercepted by the mob. The mob heard the rumors of the child thief gang and has targeted the Muslim youths.
The self-appointed child-thief vigilantes mercilessly thrashed Naim and his three companions. As Naim lay bleeding after the mob beat him with stones and wooden sticks, the three other victims Sajju, Siraj and Halim tried to flee, but failed as the mob hounded them and beat them to death despite resistance from a group of locals.
Naim was taken to a hospital by a police team, but there he succumbed to injuries.
Three bodies were recovered but the body of the fourth passenger Shaik Halim who was initially reported missing was recovered later in the locality on Friday.
The relatives of the deceased youths have refused to accept the dead body and demanded compensation of Rs 25 lakh from the Jharkhand government.
Seven people were lynched by tribal villagers in Jharkhand’s Seraikela-Kharsawan district near the steel city of Jamshedpur in three separate incidents within 24 hours following rumours about child-lifting gangs.
Two of the three other victims, who were attacked by the mob at Nagadih under Bagbera police station area, were identified as Uttam Kumar Verma and Ganesh Kumar Gupta was returning from work linked to the Swachh Bharat campaign beaten to death. The identity of the third victim is yet to be ascertained.