A farmer from Sanwer in Indore was lynched and five of his other associates from Ujjain and Indore were severely beaten up following a rumour that they had abducted a villager in Manawar of Dhar district on Wednesday.
Local sources said that a rumour of child-lifting also was spread due to which the mob swelled and attacked the six farmers brutally.
Police said that the victims, who were in two cars, were chased for about 25 km by villagers of Khirakia and Junapani under Tirla police station area and assaulted in Borlai village under Manawar police station. One of the cars was also burnt down by the mob that attacked the farmers with lathis and big boulders.
The lynched farmer has been identified as Ganesh Khasi, son of Manoj Khasi, of Shivpur Kheda village in Sanwer of Indore district. Four of the other victims were from Limba Piplia village under Neelganga police station in Ujjain and another from Shivpur Kheda, Yuvraj Singh Chouhan, in-charge of the Borlai police station told THE WEEK.
Three persons from Khirakia village—Avtar Singh, Bhuvan Singh and Jam Singh—have been booked for the murder and assault, apart from 40-45 other unnamed persons, Chouhan said.
Chouhan said that the victim farmers had given advance of Rs 2.5 lakh to labourers from Khirakia for some work. But the labourers did not turn up for work. The farmers were demanding the money back. They were called to Khirakia to collect Rs 50,000 on Wednesday. They had brought along one Mukesh Singh, a resident of Khirakia along to identify the houses of the persons they had to collect money from, the police official said.
However, when farmers reached Khirakia, the villagers confronted them with allegation that they had abducted Mukesh Singh. Soon the mob swelled but the six managed to escape in their vehicle. The word however spread and residents of nearby Junapani village also tried to accost the two cars by blocking road. But the vehicles managed to cross the village.
A mob however followed them and they were finally accosted in Borlai, about 12km from Manawar town, and beaten up brutally. Chouhan said that the video footage was being scanned to find out involvement of Borlai villagers too, but the main accused were from Khirakia and part of the mob was from Junapani.
The five who were seriously injured in the attack have been taken to Indore for treatment, the police official said. Superintendent of Police of Dhar, Aditya Pratap Singh could not be contacted for comments.
