In yet another incident, mob attacks ragpicker

A house being vandalised by the irate mob as it assumed that the kidnappers had taken shelter there, at Mangar Basti in Old City on Monday.

A house being vandalised by the irate mob as it assumed that the kidnappers had taken shelter there, at Mangar Basti in Old City on Monday.  

She was mistaken for a child-lifter

There seems to be no respite from attacks on innocents as people are being carried away by rumours over child-lifting gangs prowling in the city.

In broad daylight on Monday, a large group of people from Mangar Basti in Old City singled out a woman ragpicker and assaulted her.

Habeeb Nagar police said at around 1 p.m., Nagamani, a resident of Puranapul, stopped to ask a boy for directions to Mallepally when a customer at a salon saw her interacting with him and suspected her to be a child-lifter.

The man raised alarm saying Nagamani was a member of a kidnapping gang, as shown in videos that are being circulated on WhatsApp. In no time, over 200 persons gathered and began thrashing her.

Soon, the Habeeb Nagar police, who were already engaged in sensitising the locals on fake messages and videos being circulated on social media, reached Mangar Basti to rescue Nagamani, who was in an inebriated condition.

“We reached the spot in less than five minutes and rescued the woman. We shifted her to a safe place and started dispersing the crowd,” said P. Madhukar Swamy, Inspector, Habeeb Nagar.

In the meantime, some miscreants started shouting that the kidnappers were taking shelter at one Upada Laxman’s house in the area, which was reportedly locked from outside.

“The irate mob vandalised the house demolishing it completely,” Mr. Swamy said, adding that one person suffered a head injury while trying to destroy the house.

He said people started searching for the ‘gang’ wielding sticks, stones and empty liquor bottles. “However, a few locals helped us control the situation. We could restore normalcy only after we informed them that there were no criminal gangs on the prowl in any part of the city as being projected on social media,” said M. Venkateshwarlu, Additional DCP, West Zone.

He said the victim, Nagamani, visited the area along with another ragpicker Nagaraju, a resident of the same locality, on Monday afternoon. The duo consumed toddy at an outlet at Sitarambagh after selling the scrap that they had collected.

After verifying the video footages of surveillance cameras in the area, the police confirmed that the woman was not a child-lifter.