KOCHI : The police investigation into the death of a migrant worker in Valakom, near Muvattupuzha, on Thursday night is reported to have confirmed lynching. Officers on Saturday recorded the arrest of 10 persons who are suspected to have assaulted Asok Das, 24, who hailed from Arunachal Pradesh and had worked as a chef at a restaurant in Valakom.
All the ten -- Vijesh, Anish, Sathyan, Suraj, Keshav, Eliyas K Paul, Amal, Athul Krishna, Emil, and Sanal -- are residents of the village.
Ernakulam Rural police chief Vaibhav Saxena said the preliminary probe revealed that the mob had assaulted Asok, in what could be an act of moral policing gone wrong. “Our initial conclusion was that Asok suffered injuries to the head and chest and that the mob had assaulted him. The postmortem confirmed the injuries. Based on the investigation, we have arrested 10 persons who were part of the mob that tied Asok to a pole. We are trying to establish the involvement of more persons. We have booked those arrested for murder. The investigation is progressing,” he said.
According to police, Asok was assaulted before and after he was tied to the pole. Both his woman friend and her house mate also issued statements that Asok was attacked by the mob.
An Onmanorama report said that Asok Das was a YouTuber and had uploaded his latest video titled Lost of Time only 11 days prior to the day he was lynched.
Das was reportedly caught by a mob from the residence of a former woman colleague, who worked in a hotel in Valakom and beaten up. A former panchayat member is one of the accused in the case, the report said.