Patna, Sep
26 :Bihar's saga of bloody vigilante justice continues with five people being
beaten to death at various places for various reasons - ranging from property
disputes to petty theft. All
five, including one woman, were lynched by mobs Monday and Tuesday. The woman
was killed on suspicion of practicing witchcraft. One man lost his life because
he was suspected to be a thief, another over a dispute on drainage and two over
property issues. In
a savage irony, Sanichri Devi, 60, a poor woman in Kaimur district's Kotamdag
Kolhuan village, was beaten to death with bamboo sticks for allegedly practicing
witchcraft after a witchcraft practitioner said she was the one responsible for
the ills of the village. "She
was first humiliated and hot water poured on her body to force her to accept that
she was practicing witchcraft. When she refused, she was thrashed and beaten to
death by bamboo sticks," police said. Police
have lodged a case against six villagers under the Prevention of Witchcraft Practices
Act. In the second
incident, Bikram Ram, 22, was lynched in Lohkhara village of Gopalgunj district
Monday night when he was caught after allegedly stealing something from the house
of Kariman Manjhi. Police have registered a case against Manjhi. Parmanand
Prasad, 35, was beaten to death with bamboo sticks and rods in Dumri village in
Siwan district over a property dispute. Similar
was the case of 27-year-old Lal Babu Sahni who was killed in Laxmipur village
of Muzaffarpur district over a land dispute. A
dispute over drainage claimed the life of 45-year-old Shiv Narayan Sah in Hakpara
village of Saharsa district. Before
this, several cases of lynching in the state have come to light in the last 15
days. The worst
of these was the brutal killing of 10 men from the underprivileged Kueri community
in Vaishali district on Sep 13. A high-level probe conducted after the incident
found that the men were not thieves as suspected earlier. Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar imposed a fine against the residents of the village where
the men were lynched. Two
suspected thieves were beaten to death by a mob in a Patna locality last week.
The same week a young man in Sitamarhi was murdered by a mob on suspicion that
he had stolen a statue. (IANS) Comment Comments... I
am sorry but this appears sensationalisation. The five appear murder cases rather
than vigilante justice. Sad as these are, any society has murders. Given
that Bihar's population is almost 90 million, five murders should be seen in context.
Thakur Vikas Sinha
tvsinha@gmail.com |