NEW DELHI: Indian police were investigating on Friday two separate cases of lynching in which men were beaten to death by frenzied crowds in anger over alleged assaults on young women.

In the north-eastern state of Nagaland, a curfew was imposed on Dimapur city after a mob dragged a rape suspect out of jail on Thursday, killing him and stringing him up from a clock tower.

A man was killed in the subsequent police firing.

Meanwhile, another man was killed in a mob attack in the northern city of Varanasi after a group of girls alleged they were molested while celebrating the festival of Holi on Friday, police said.

“The irate crowd assembled following a complaint by some young women to their families that they were molested... by a few men from that area,” Anil Kumar, in charge at the local police station, said.

“We are investigating into the mob violence and also ascertaining whether the deceased was one of the alleged molesters. The dead man was in his fifties and was beaten with sticks. So far, three people have been arrested.”

In the Nagaland incident, the mob’s victim had been arrested and jailed in late February, after being accused of raping a woman multiple times.

Meren Jamir, superintendent of police in Dimapur, said a 25-year-old youth suspected to be part of the mob was injured in police firing, and later succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. He said police were “trying to bring the situation under control”.

Tensions had been rising in the area since February 24 when police arrested the alleged rapist over the assault of a 19-year-old tribal woman.

Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang said the suspect was a Bangladeshi immigrant, and Mr Jamir said his killing had been followed by attacks on Bangladeshi-owned businesses.

Published in Dawn March 7th , 2015

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