GUWAHATI/RAIPUR : Such incidents happen, perhaps, only in Assam. Two persons — one suspected to have stolen a goat while the other accused of stealing a pair of slippers — were lynched by mobs in two separate incidents in the State.
The police said a mob at Amlakhi Tea Estate in Central Assam’s Nagaon district pinned down on three persons on Monday evening when they were preparing to feast on a goat which they had allegedly stolen and killed. In the assault that followed, one of them, Bijoy Bhumij, was grievously injured. He succumbed to his injuries in police custody later. “After the assault, the locals handed them over to the police, who brought them to the Nagaon Sadar police station. But unfortunately, one of them, an Adivasi youth, died at night,” Nagaon Superintendent of Police, Y T Gyatso, told Express.
In the other incident, one Joga Barua was beaten to death by a mob on the suspicion that he had stolen a pair of slippers. The incident was reported from Simaluguri in northern Assam’s Lakhimpur district.
“A group of people handed him to the Simaluguri police outpost on Monday night. The locals had beaten him up for allegedly stealing a pair of slippers from a temple. This (Tuesday) morning, he was found senseless and immediately taken to the hospital but the doctors declared him brought dead,” Lakhimpur Superintendent of Police, Brajenjit Singha, said.
The incidents came a day after an alleged rape accused was hacked to death in full view of the police in the State’s Karbi Anglong district.
Church Attacked
Two unidentified men armed with sharp-edged weapons barged into a church in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district and allegedly set ablaze a Bible and other articles besides thrashing the pastor and his pregnant wife, police said on Monday.
The incident took place on Sunday evening at village Karanji Matagudi Para under Parpa police station limits. “As per the written complaint of Pastor Deenbandhu Sameli, an FIR has been lodged in this connection. Continuous patrolling is being done in the region to nab the attackers. The culprits will be arrested soon,” Bastar SP RN Dash told reporters. As per the complaint, two men identified themselves as belonging to some other denomination of the Christian community and expressed their desire to pray in the church.
After entering inside the premises, they launched an attack on the pastor and poured inflammable liquid on a Bible.