A dozen people have been arrested for lynching a mentally unsound woman on the suspicion that she was a child-lifter at Badgad village in the Morwa police station limits in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh. The body was recovered on Saturday.
“We have taken 12 people into custody. Interrogation is under way. Primary findings suggest that locals killed her presuming her to be a child-lifter,” Riyaz Ahmed, Singrauli Superintendent of Police, said. The destitute woman is yet to be identified, said the police.
According to the police, for the past few days, the 30-year-old woman was found roaming in areas that come under the Morwa police station. On Thursday, some youth got suspicious about her and thought she could be a child-lifter. The villagers surrounded her and tried to find out who she was but she did not give any proper answer. Later she was not to be seen in the village. Her quiet disappearance raised more doubts. When she was found, things turned violent. The villagers assaulted her indiscriminately, the police said. Later, the mob reportedly dumped the body near a forest nursery.
For the past few weeks, social media has been rife with rumours about alleged child-lifters in Singrauli that shares its boundary with Uttar Pradesh.
The Madhya Pradesh police have averted at least four lynchings in the past one month in Balaghat, Seoni and Chhindwara districts, where social media is rife with fake news about child-lifters and kidney thieves.
Last month, in Balaghat district, in two separate incidents, two constables of the Rampayali police station and two local youth were caught and thrashed by villagers on suspicion of being kidney thieves. A video showing organs being removed from a man while he is still alive has spread so much fear, the police said.
Four women assaulted
In West Bengal, four women were assaulted and two of them disrobed allegedly by a mob at Dawkimari village in Jalpaiguri district on suspicion of being child-lifters, the police said on Monday.
The women were rescued by the police and taken to a nearby primary health centre, where their condition was stated to be stable.
(With inputs from PTI)
