MUMBAI: Ruling out religion angle in the Palghar lynching, Maharashtra Crime Investigation Department said the two monks and their driver fell victims to child lifting rumours at Gadchinchale village on the border of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
The CID filed two charge sheets — one running into 5,921 pages and another of 4,955 pages — in the court of Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) at Dahanu taluka in Palghar district on Wednesday.
As many as 808 suspects and 118 witnesses were examined to collect strong evidence against the accused, the CID said in a release.
In all, 154 people were arrested and 11 juveniles detained. None of the accused has been released on bail so far, it added.
The charges of murder, common intention, attempts to murder besides relevant sections under the Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Diseases Act were slapped against the accused.
The three victims were waylaid and lynched by a mob on April 16 when they were travelling in a car to Surat, Gujarat for attending a funeral amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
Incidentally, an initial probe had brought to fore that fake messages were being spread through various social media platforms like WhatsApp for last 15 days that child kidnappers and organ harvesters were active in the region.
“The CID thoroughly investigated the case. Some of the political parties were trying to give it religious colour to this entire incident. Now, it has been proved that it was an episode which happened because of rumours,” Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh said.
TNIE had also reported that the tragedy occurred because rumours had circulated in the village that child-lifters were roaming in the area during the lockdown.