MANGALURU: A man travelling with his one and a half-year-old daughter was beaten up by a mob in the district, after being accused of 'child lifting'. The incident took place in broad daylight in Belthangady in Dakshina Kannada district, when 30-year-old Khalid was taking his weeping baby in a rickshaw.
At Ujire, Belthangady the rickshaw in which Khalid travelled, was intercepted by two bike borne locals. The youth dragged Khalid out and beat him up black and blue. Locals joined the two youth in holding Khalid accountable for a crime he had not committed. Khalid's repeated pleas to let him go as the child was his own, fell on deaf ears as he was thrashed.
The driver who ferried Khalid called up the Ujjire police about the child theif during the melee. The police arrived on the spot and detained Khalid, while the mob continued to accuse him of child theft. After taking the man and the baby to the station, the police discerned that the child was indeed Khalid's. The crowd dispersed slowly, and no complaint was registered in the regard either by the locals or by the victim. "Although the victim was Muslim and the mob Hindu, there was no communal element to it," added Belthangady police inspector Nagesh.
As per police sources, Khalid a resident of Charmadi, had taken his baby with him after he fought with his wife and left home. However, in a drunken stupor, he is seen to have hit the baby, which made the locals suspicious, the source added. The wife took the child from the station at night and Khalid's brother took him home. A video of Khalid being trashed went viral on social media on Friday, with members of the mob laughing at the sight of the incident.