The police said the lynching of two men here on June 8 was planned by a man who had at least three others killed similarly since 2012.
Interrogation revealed that Alphajos Timung had a quarrel with the duo near a waterfall. He brought more friends and tried to get into a fight, but the two left the place sensing trouble.
“Timung called up the villagers and told them he had seen two men fleeing in a black SUV with an abducted child. The villagers, on the edge because of the scare circulated via social media, believed the story, stopped the vehicle and bludgeoned the two to death,” Kuladhar Saikia, the State’s Director-General of Police, said. As it turned out, Timung had allegedly been involved in the lynching of three others since 2012 after spreading rumours that they were militants. This came to light after the police arrested Alphajos Timung from Karbi Anglong on Tuesday night.
Woman murdered
Rumours about child abductors that spread through social media have claimed the life of a woman in Assam.
Police in central Assam’s Dima Hasao district said Omkumari Sharma, a Nepali woman, was lynched the very night two men – Nilotpal Das, 29, and Abhijeet Nath, 30 — were bludgeoned to death in the adjoining Karbi Anglong district.
The police found the middle-aged Ms. Sharma’s body from Panimur Koyari with wounds on her body. They picked up seven people after investigation. “They said they found the woman sitting outside a shop and suspected her of being a child abductor. They thrashed her after she did not reply to any of their questions,” the officer said.
Published - June 13, 2018 10:45 pm IST
