A 35-year-old man was allegedly lynched by a mob on the suspicion of theft in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh on Tuesday, reported The Indian Express.
In videos of the incident that have surfaced on social media, the mob can be seen kicking, punching and hitting the man, identified as Mohammed Farid alias Aurangzeb, with sticks and dragging him on the road.
Another video shows a policeman carrying an injured Farid into the hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
The police have so far arrested four persons in the case and the search for three others is ongoing.
Farid was attacked after he was allegedly seen coming out of the home of Mukesh Chand Mittal, a textile trader, in the Mama Bhanja locality of Aligarh, said the police.
Mittal’s son, Rohit, who was outside the house, reportedly confronted Farid. The police said Farid was soon overpowered by Mittal’s family members and others who had assembled around the house.
“An FIR under Indian Penal Code section 302 [murder] was registered at the Gandhi Park police station late on Tuesday night in this connection,” The Indian Express quoted Mrigank Shekhar Pathak, Aligarh city superintendent of police, as saying. “We have arrested four persons named in the FIR so far and are trying to identify others involved in the incident through available video footage. No one will be spared.”
On Wednesday, leaders of the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and members of Farid’s family called for a sit-in protest demanding the arrest of the three remaining persons accused in the case, according to The Indian Express.
“An innocent Muslim man has been lynched by the Hindu family and others who painted him as a thief, while the fact is that he had mistakenly entered the house owned by Mukesh Mittal,” claimed Samajwadi Party leader Ajju Ishaq.
Hindutva group Bajrang Dal, meanwhile, alleged that Farid had entered Mittal’s house with intent to steal and that the crowd’s response was “a normal reaction”.
“Though I do not justify mob lynching, those trying to protect a thief should remember clearly that Uttar Pradesh is still ruled by Yogi Adityanath, whose government has zero tolerance for crime,” Gaurav Sharma, a local Bajrang Dal convener, was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “Do not forget that bulldozers had razed properties of such elements and these [bulldozers] will roar again on the streets to teach criminals a lesson.”
In recent years, there has been a growing trend of authorities in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states bulldozing the properties of those accused of a crime. There are no provisions in law that provide for demolishing property as a punitive measure.
Personnel from three police stations have been deployed in and around the site of the alleged lynching to maintain law and order. Shopkeepers in the Mama Bhanja locality and the Railway Bazar closed their establishments on Wednesday in protest.
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