In a case of alleged theft, two men identified as Mubarak Ansari and Akhter Ansari were caught and beaten up by a mob on the accusation of stealing batteries. The incident happened in the Govindpur township of Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district on the intervening night of 5 and 6 November.
While Mubarak succumbed to injuries, Akhtar Ansari, who was brutally thrashed, survived.
Sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Bermo Anjani Anjan told The Quint, “Preliminary investigation suggests that the two men who were caught while they were stealing batteries. Similar to this theft, there was another one week ago where the same two people are alleged to be involved.”
Anjan has said that the batteries were allegedly being stolen from Premchand Mahato. The Quint was also told that it was after he and his sons, Nandan and Kundan Mahato raised an alarm that more people came to beat the two up.
Reacting to people taking law into their own hands, Anjan said, “More people were called in from the Govindpur town and the two were brutally beaten up for hours. We regularly conduct campaigns, meetings with people asking them to not take law into their own hands whatever the situation is. They should have called us or they should have brought him to the police station. It is merely five kilometers away from the sight of the beating,”.
The accused in the case are being rounded up while the body has been sent for post-mortem.
(This is a developing story, more details are awaited.)
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