GUWAHATI: Swayed by rumours of child lifters being on the prowl on the social media, a mob lynched two youths from Guwahati in a remote village of
Assam's Karbi Anglong district on Friday night.
"For the past few days, a Facebook post was being circulated that some child lifters have come to Assam. What happened in Karbi Anglong was a tragic fallout of people falling for such rumours," said Assam DGP Kuladhar Saikia.
Five persons have already been arrested in connection with the incident. Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has asked additional DGP (Law and Order) Mukesh Agarwala to rush to the site of the incident and conduct an inquiry to nab the culprits. Agarwala said more people would be arrested soon.
Nilotpal Das (29), a sound engineer based in Mumbai, and his friend Abhijeet Nath (30), a businessman, had gone to Kangthilangso (a picnic spot) in Karbi Anglong to capture the sounds of nature and collect some ornamental fishes which are found in abundance there. According to reports, the duo had asked for directions to go to Kangthilangso from some villagers who suspected them to be child lifters and alerted others in the area. On their way back, some villagers stopped the vehicle in which they were travelling at Panjuri at 7.40 pm, pulled them out of the car and lynched them. The area has neither electricity nor mobile connectivity.
One of the attackers even recorded the entire act of barbarism on his mobile and circulated it on the social media. The clip showed Nilotpal pleading before the murderers that he was an Assamese from Guwahati. With folded hands, Niloptal was heard pleading, "Don't kill me...please don't beat me. I am an Assamese. Believe me, I am speaking the truth. My father's name is Gopal Chandra Das and mother's name is Radhika Das...please let me go." When a friend of Nilotpal from Guwahati had called him at 8 pm, a stranger picked up the phone and told him that Nilotpal has been killed.
The vehicle in which they were travelling was also badly damaged in the attack.
According to some witnesses, their pleas to stop the mob of youths from attacking the duo fell on deaf ears. "A member of a village defence party first informed the Dokmoka Police Station which is a 30-minute drive from the site where the lynching was on," said a local. "When police arrived on the spot, one of the youths appeared to be dead and the other one was gasping for life. They were immediately taken to hospital where they were declared brought dead by doctors," said a policeman.
Representative image