A 26-year-old disabled man died after he was beaten up by a mob on the suspicion of theft in Delhi, the police said on Wednesday.
The man, Isaar Ahmed, was a resident of Northeast Delhi’s Sunder Nagri area. He was tied to a pole and beaten with sticks in the Nand Nagri area on Tuesday morning.
The Delhi Police have arrested seven persons, including a juvenile, in connection with the incident, reported PTI. They have been identified as Kamal (23), Manoj (19), Kishan (19), Pappu (24), Lucky (19) and Yunus (20).
Videos of the incident showed a group of men taking turns to assault him. Ahmed was seen crying in pain and pleading with them to stop beating him.
The man’s father Abdul Wahid said that his neighbour later brought him home on a rickshaw. The 26-year-old succumbed to his injuries around 7 pm on Tuesday.
Ahmed’s family alleged that he was beaten after he ate prasad, or offerings to a Hindu deity, at a religious event, according to The Observer Post.
The police, however, denied that there was any communal angle to the assault, NDTV reported. Unidentified officials told the channel that as per initial investigations, there were both Hindus and Muslims among the men who attacked Ahmed.
The accused persons told the police that they saw Ahmed lurking around the area at 5 am and thought he was a thief.
“When he failed to answer the questions of local residents, they tied him to a pole and thrashed him with sticks,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (North East) Joy Tirkey said, according to PTI.
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