On Thursday, three persons identified as Mohammed Babar, 28, Ruknuddin Alam, 32, and Mohammad Sajid, 28 were beaten by the locals in Diha village of Gaya in Bihar. The locals said that the three persons had arrived in the village with weapons to execute thefts and were apprehended as they tried to run away.
According to the reports, the local villagers stated that around 6 people had arrived in the village on the night of February 22. The 6 people carried weapons as they intended to steal money and assets belonging to a few villagers. The suspected thieves were caught by the villagers who later began beating them up.
While three of them managed to escape, Mohammed Babar, Ruknuddin Alam, and Mohammad Sajid were caught by the villagers. The police, meanwhile, were informed. They took cognizance of the event and took the three individuals to Gaya’s Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College. The doctors at the hospital declared Mohammed Babar dead while the other two have been now transferred to PMCH in Patna.
The Police filed two different FIRs in the case and confirmed that there was no communal angle in the case. The police were informed by villagers that they stopped the group to ask about their identities and were then fired upon by them.
आज दिनांक 22/23.02.2023 को देर रात बेलागंज थाना अन्तर्गत तीन अपराधकर्मियो को अपराधीक घटना को अंजाम देने के क्रम में ग्रामीणो द्वारा मारमीट किया गया। जिसमे इलाज के दौरान मृत्यु हो गई।@bihar_police @IPRD_Bihar @thegreatkbc #GayaPolice#Gaya_Police_At_Your_Service pic.twitter.com/jicwKmiVfV
— GAYA POLICE (गया (बिहार) पुलिस ) (@GAYAPOLICEBIHAR) February 23, 2023
The officers, during the investigation, recovered a Scorpio car and three bullets, one knife, a bomb, and an iron rod from the SUV of the accused persons. The Police also said that Ruknuddin Alam and Mohammad Sajid, who are injured in the incident, already have several FIRs registered in their respective names.
However, the family members of the accused claim that the three were deliberately beaten and that this was an attempt of ‘targeted killing’. One of the family members of Sajid stated that the three were beaten up over a long-standing land dispute. “The Police came home and told me that your son and two others, Babar and Alam were lynched in the village. The three worked in a Kolkata factory and went to Diha to recruit laborers. The incident occurred outside the village where they had stopped to relieve themselves. This is deliberate killing over a land dispute going on in our village,” he said.
He added that the three were threatened by several people amid the ongoing dispute. On asking who he thinks might have beaten the three persons up, Sajid’s relative named Mohammed Shahid Hussain and Mohammed Abdul Qadir, the video of which went viral over social media.
बिहार के गया मे भीड़ ने तीन युवकों को चोरी का आरोप लगाकर लिंच किया!
— Sadaf Afreen صدف (@s_afreen7) February 24, 2023
जिसमें मोहम्मद बाबर की मौत हो गई!
जबकि साजिद और रुकबुद्दीन गंभीर रूप से घायल हो गए!
परिवार ने आरोप लगाया है कि घटना एक साजिश के तहत की गई है!
सवाल ये है, भीड़ कब तक इंसानियत का कत्ल करती रहेगी?#BiharPolice pic.twitter.com/WiGkEbhKHo
The three hail from Kurisarai village, which is around six kilometers from Diha. SSP Gaya, Ashish Bharti, confirmed the development and reiterated that there is no communal angle in the case. “We are probing all angles,” he said.
On Thursday, local politicians and the relatives of the three persons obstructed the Gaya-Patna route in Belaganj for many hours in order to demand the arrest of the ‘perpetrators’, Rs 25 lakh in compensation, and a government job for Babar’s family. The blockade was removed only after the police announced the formation of an SIT to probe the case.
