Jharkhand lynching: Video grab shows ASI Gope, his face to camera; Gope at station (right) and in-charge T P Kushwaha. Subham Dutta

According to the report in the Express, as the four were lynched over five hours during the early hours of May 18, present on the spot alongside a mob was a Deputy Superintendent of police, a Circle Inspector, two Assistant Sub-inspectors and at least 30 policemen.

The Indian Express tracked down two of the policemen who are seen speaking to the mob in videos of the incident and also spoke to several of the eyewitnesses to piece together the sequence of events that ended with the deaths in Shobhapur of Naim (35), Sheikh Sajju (25), Sheikh Siraj (26) and Sheikh Halim (28).

It’s not a case of the police looking the other way; they were in fact watching the lynching unfold in front of their eyes.

“Please, I beg you. Don’t talk to me. I am just a small officer. I was there but I cannot talk to you. Please contact my superiors”, Sashibhusan Gope, the ASI on duty at the Rajnagar station pleaded with the Indian Express correspondent.

Anta Tudu, the mukhiya of Shobhapur, said, “We rushed out of our homes on hearing that the child-lifters had been caught. Police arrived in time and spoke to the villagers for a while, but there was no action on their part. It is sad that such an incident happened.

Meanwhile taking suo moto notice of the lynchings, the National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to Jharkhand's Director General of Police calling for a detailed report within four weeks.

Read the full Indian Express report.

Also read: Adivasis lynch 7 persons in a day in Jharkhand over child abduction rumours.     
 

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Photo credit: Hindustan Times

The Jharkhand police today disclosed that hundreds of adivasis have lynched seven people in separate incidents across Jharkhand over rumours that child kidnappers were on the prowl in the tribal districts of south Jharkhand.

The rumour-mill has resulted in adivasis along the borders of Seraikela-Kharsawan, East Singhbhum and West Singhbhum districts picking up their traditional weapons and going after strangers.

The seven persons lynched on Thursday included four Muslims and three Hindus from the neighbouring non-tribal areas.
“These are highly superstitious acts that cannot be called communal,” East Singhbhum senior police superintendent of police, Anup T Mathew, told The Hindustan Times.

But the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Babar Khan insisted that the four Muslim men were no strangers in the area and “there is certainly a different cause for the murder, which police should probe”.

Also read: 3 cattle traders lynched near Jamshedpur city in Jharkhand

Baseless rumour-mongering to incite passions has often been the trigger for communal violence in the past.

Suspecting a communal angle to the killings the relatives of the Muslims have refused to bury the deceased till the killers were arrested and a compensation of Rs. 25 lakh was paid to each of the victims’ families, according to the Hindustan Times report.

Stating that in fact there has been no reported incident of any child abduction in the region, Mathew added that “a massive awareness drive is required to check the attacks and killings.”

The police have been moving from village to village in the adivasi belt announcing on loud speakers that to dispel any fear of child kidnapping.
In the first incident on Thursday, the victims were four Muslim youth, all cattle traders, who were cornered and lynched. When the police tried rescuing the traders, the adivasis attacked them too and damaged their vehicle before fleeing from the place.

In a separate incident later the same day, the adivasis lynched three young men (Hindus), two them brothers and thrashed their grandmother.
 

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A village mob chased the car of a group of cattle traders and lynched three of them near Jamshedpur in a hunt that stretched through Wednesday night and spilled over to Thursday afternoon, the Telegraph has reported.

Those killed were Sheikh Naim, 35, Sheikh Sajju, 25, and Sheikh Siraj, 26. The fate of a fourth, Sheikh Halim, 28, is remains unknown.

Claiming there was no communal angle to the incident, the police said the attack was likely the result of child kidnapping rumours that has been spreading through the region in Jharkhand.

In March last year, two cattle traders had been killed in Latehar in the BJP-ruled state in a suspected instance of cow vigilantism. Last month, a 20-year-old Muslim, Mohammed Shalik was beaten to death in  Jharkhand  for being in love with a Hindu woman

Police said the three deceased along with Shaikh Halim were travelling in a car on Thursday night to purchase cattle which they apparently planned to sell at the Saturday cattle market in the area.

Police sources said a mob of over 100 tried to stop the car after it crossed Hessel village a little after midnight, but it sped way. The crowd chased the car and forced it to a halt in Daru village. The mob beat Naim mercilessly and torched the car while the other three escaped. Around 6.30am, the crowd reached the nearby village of Shobhapur, which has a large Muslim population, in search of the three.

Stopped by Rajnagar OC Tuleswar Khushwaha, who was with an assistant sub-inspector and a constable, the mob assaulted the three policemen and torched their jeep. Another police team took Naim from Daru to the Seraikela subdivisional hospital, where he died.

By 1pm, the mob had traced Sajju and Siraj, who had been given shelter by Sunil Mahto of Shosomauli village, 2km from Shobhapur, and lynched the duo.

"There is no communal aspect," deputy inspector-general of police Prabhat Kumar told the Telegraph.
 

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