Bengaluru Man Accused of Abducting Children Lynched by Mob

Chamarajpet Police have registered an FIR under various sections, including 302 for murder.

A chilling video of a man covered in blood, his hands tied up with a rope and being dragged on the road by two minor boys has emerged.

(Photo Courtesy: Screenshot from the video/ The News Minute)

A chilling video of a man covered in blood, his hands tied up with a rope and being dragged on the road by two minor boys has emerged from Bengaluru.

The man is barely conscious but the two boys keep dragging him. An angry mob follows the boys who drag the man. A few seconds later, the boys stop dragging him. Several women immediately gather around the grievously injured man, hitting him with sticks and iron rods.

The boys once again begin dragging the man away towards a flyover. The injured man is left in the middle and the mob circles him.

At this point, a man enters and begins brutally beating the injured man with a cricket bat. The blood-spattered man is not conscious enough to scream.

This incident did not happen in a remote part of Karnataka, where several incidents of mob justice have been reported in the past – it took place in the heart of Bengaluru.

At around 3:00 pm on Wednesday, residents of Chamarajapet’s Bakshi Garden allegedly spotted a stranger talking to a few children.

The man was giving the children some chocolates and sweets and trying to take them away with him. The people who kidnap children are increasing near Vinayak Talkies, where we spotted him. The public surrounded him and hit him with many things including cricket bats.

Rajesh, Eyewitness

According to the Chamarajpet Police, one of the people who witnessed the brutality called the police control room and the nearest Hoysala rushed to the spot.

The call came in at around 3:00 pm [on Wednesday]. Immediately, the police rushed to the spot and dispersed the crowd. By the time they reached, the injured man – Kalu Ramu, a native of Rajasthan – was unconscious and bleeding profusely. The people alleged that he was trying to abduct their children and hence had beaten him up.

Chamarajpet police told TNM

An ambulance was called and Ramu was immediately rushed to Victoria Hospital. Minutes after that, Ramu succumbed to his injuries.

Chamarajpet Police have registered an FIR under sections 302 (murder), 325 (grievously causing hurt with deadly weapon) 141 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 34 (common intention).

“We only know that Kalu Ramu was a daily wage worker who had come to Bengaluru from Rajasthan. We are questioning the eyewitnesses and are trying to find out who was responsible for the violence. Besides, we have not yet established whether Ramu was there near Vinayaka Talkies to abduct children. At this point, they are mere allegations by the people. A case of murder has been registered now,” a senior police officer said.

Fake WhatsApp Messages Led to the Lynching

Similarly, in another part of Anjanappa Garden, a mob was brutally assaulting two men – Manjunath and Rajkumar. When the beat police arrived, they handed the two men over.

The cause for panic and incidents of violence, according to the police and residents, are WhatsApp messages doing the round that are asking people to beware of predators involved in child trafficking.

Similar incidents have been reported in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, where paranoid mobs have brutally lynched people, who they assumed were child abductors, to death.

(The story was first published on The News Minute and has been republished in an arrangement.)