Mob Attacks Speech-Impaired ‘Transgender’ for Being ‘Child Lifter’

The victim was stopped by a local woman whose baby boy was abducted by unidentified persons three months ago

PTI
India
Published:
There has been a recent spurt in mob attacks over suspicion of child kidnapping or theft across India. 
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There has been a recent spurt in mob attacks over suspicion of child kidnapping or theft across India. 
(Photo: Rhythum Seth/The Quint) 

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A speech-impaired person was allegedly assaulted by a mob at Meghnagar railway station in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district on suspicions of being a child lifter, police said on Thursday, 9 August.

The incident occurred on 8 August night, when the person, suspected to be a transgender, was stopped by a local woman whose baby boy was allegedly abducted by unidentified persons from Ujjain railway station three months ago, a police official said.

"The woman spotted a person behaving in a suspicious manner near Meghnagar station (around 15 kms from Jhabua) and accused him of being a child-lifter. Her another son claimed that he had seen the person with his brother," said Government Railway Police (GRP) Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Bathusingh Bilore.

After the woman raised an alarm, a mob gathered at the spot and beat the person, before handing him over to the police, he said.

Police later realised that the person was speech-impaired and couldn’t speak, Bilore said, adding that they suspect that the person is a transgender.

Police then asked the person to explain his identity on a piece of paper, but he wrote in a script that the police couldn't read, said the ASI.

He said police found children ‘s clothes in the bag of the person whose identity has been withheld.

The woman who accused the person of abducting her son from Ujjain hails from Bedawali in Jhabua district, and had come to Meghnagar railway station in search of the missing child, police said.

"The woman claimed that clothes found in the bag of the person are that of her missing son," said the ASI.

The suspected child-lifter was taken to the Ujjain Mahila (women) police station where the woman had lodged a missing person complaint, he said, adding that further
investigation was on.

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