Lucknow: A 20-year-old boy from a minority community was lynched on suspicion of cattle thief by a mob of around 50 people in Bholapur Hindoliya village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district in the early hours of Wednesday.
It is alleged that Shahrukh Khan was trying to steal cattle along with his three accomplices when around 50 villagers caught him and started beating him. The men accompanying him escaped from the scene. An FIR has been lodged against 30 unidentified villagers along with accomplices of the deceased Shahrukh.
As per senior police officials, the victim was alive when they rescued him from the mob but he succumbed to his injuries at the district hospital.
SP City, Bareilly, Abhinandan Singh, said, “The deceased along with his three friends was trying to steal a buffalo at around 3am when he was spotted by the farmer. Following which villagers caught him and started thrashing him as his three accomplices managed to escape somehow.
The victim was rescued by police at around 6m and was taken to district hospital, where he died later. We have got complaints from both the sides and cases have been registered against 30 unidentified villagers as well as three people who accompanied the victim.”
Narrating the incident, Wasim Khan, brother of the deceased, said, “Shahrukh was insisting on going to our aunt’s house in a neighbourhood village but our parents didn’t allow him to go outside then. It was only after his friends arrived that Shahrukh had stepped out.”
Shahrukh was a tailor by profession and had returned to Bareilly recently after working with his uncle in Dubai.