A special team of Jharkhand police formed to probe the death of a man lynched by villagers has arrested five suspects so far, the Seraikela-Kharsawan district police chief Kartik S said on Monday.
An initial probe by the police found that Tabrez Ansari was caught by villagers on suspicions of attempted burglary and mercilessly thrashed by the mob. When he died four days later in jail, Ansari’s family repeated their allegations that the villagers had tied him to a pole and flogged him.
In between, Ansari’s family said, they also forced him to chant Jai Sri Ram and Jai Hanuman before handing him over to the police.
But the police did not act on their complaint. As opposition parties and civil society groups upped the ante, the Jharkhand government moved into damage control mode. The mob lynching also echoed in Parliament on Monday when Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Gulab Nabi Azad mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of “New India”, asserting that he preferred “old India” which had no place for hatred, anger and mob killings.