RANCHI: In a first-ever such instance of mob violence in Jharkhand, two sisters were tied up to a tree, beaten up and their hair chopped on suspicion of stealing vegetables from kitchen gardens near Thakurgaon in Ranchi.
After getting information about the incident, the police rushed to the village and rescued the women and took them to a hospital.
In a separate incident, a Larson and Toubro executive was thrashed by Gobarbasua in Hazaribagh on suspicion of being a child lifter on Tuesday. Vishnugarh police station officials said Md Shahid Siddiqui had gone to the village for some work related to the Konar Irrigation Project during which the villagers, mistaking him to be a child lifter, thrashed him. He was later rescued by the police. Three people were arrested on Wednesday.
In the Thakurgaon incident, which took place on Monday, police said efforts are on to arrest those involved in the incident.
According to police records, no instance of vegetable theft has been reported in the area in recent days.
“An FIR against 19 named and around 15 unknown accused have been lodged,” said the officer in charge of Thakurgaon Police Station Naveen Kumar Razak.
He said the two women are vegetable sellers who bought vegetables from Umedanda weekly market on Sunday and were returning to their village when their autorickshaw broke down. They then decided to halt at their relative’s place at Soba village. On Monday, they went to Ratu to sell vegetables. “In between, a rumour spread that the two were seen with stolen vegetables. The villagers then thrashed them,” said the officer in charge.
Meanwhile, the villagers staged a protest against an FIR lodged against them on Tuesday alleging the two women were thieves. The police, however, are trying to get into the details of it.