Two lynched in Gopalganj and Aurangabad districts over theft, molestation charges

Two men, one accused of molesting a girl and the other a suspected thief, were lynched by mobs in Bihar's Gopalganj and Aurangabad districts, police said on Tuesday.

A man, identified only as Shivnath, was beaten to death on Monday evening in Shahpur village in Gopalganj by family members and neighbours after a girl alleged that he had tried to molest her.

"Shivnath was caught when he was trying to escape after a girl cried that he tried to molest her. Family members and neighbours beat him to death him with bamboo sticks and iron rods," a police official said.

Relatives of the victim lodged a case with the police, naming seven people as the accused. Two people have been arrested, police said.

In the second case, a 25-year-old man was lynched on Monday by a mob near Anugrah Narain Road Station in Aurangabad district on charges of theft. The victim has not been identified by the police.

A case has been lodged against the unidentified people who lynched him, an official said.

In rural Bihar, street "justice" is becoming increasingly common. Over 50 cases of lynching were reported from the State over the last four months.

In one of the worst cases of lynching in Bihar, 10 people from the underprivileged Kueri community were thrashed to death in Vaishali district over an alleged theft in September 2007. Later, a high-level probe found that the men were not thieves as the villagers had suspected. link