23 held after 5 'child-lifters' lynched in Maharashtra

Mumbai: Twenty-three people were arrested in connection with the lynching of five people by a mob in Dhule district over suspicion that they were members of a gang of "child-lifters", a senior police officer said on Monday.

"We have arrested 23 people in connection with the incident. A few more have been identified and five teams have been formed to nab them," Dhule Superintendent of Police (SP) M Ramkumar said.

The incident took place yesterday and all the five victims were identified, the IPS officer said. "All the deceased hailed from Solapur and belonged to a nomadic community. They had come in search of livelihood due to a drought-like situation in their district," he added.

Those arrested have been booked under IPC section 302 (murder) and the sections pertaining to rioting.

The incident took place at the tribal hamlet of Rainpada, 25 km from Pimpalner in Dhule district, the police said.

The five victims, along with a few others, were seen getting off a state transport bus at Rainpada, they added. When one of them apparently tried to speak to a six-year-old girl, the villagers, who had gathered there for the weekly Sunday market, pounced on them, thrashing them with stones, sticks and chappals. According to the police, rumours that a gang of child-lifters was active in the area were doing the rounds of social media. Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan alleged the lynching incident in Dhule was a result of the "inefficiency" of the BJP-led state government and police administration. "In a similar incident in Jalgaon district, a BJP MLA was part of a mob assault on some people, who were thought to be child-lifters," the former Maharashtra CM said.