100 held for lynching 3 in Maharashtra’s Palghar

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, April 20

The Maharashtra Police have so far detained more than 100 persons, including several juveniles, and are on the lookout for more after a huge crowd lynched three men, including two sadhus on Thursday night, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said during an online interaction even as videos of the assault went viral on social media.

Thackeray said the murders were the result of a mistaken identity after rumours spread in the remote Gadchinchale village in Palghar district that a gang of child lifters were roaming in a vehicle during the lockdown.

“There were rumours that a gang of robbers were either kidnapping children or adults to harvest their kidneys,” District Collector Kailash Shinde said in an appeal on social media.

“There are no gangs coming to rob or kidnap people. Please do not believe in rumours,” he said.

According to the police the three — Swami Kalpvruksha Giri (70), Swami Sushil Giri (35) and their driver Nilesh Telgade — were traveling from Kandivali in Mumbai to Gujarat to attend a funeral when they were lynched in the village close to Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Local officials say most attackers were tribals from the nearby villages.

Thackeray scotched rumours of a communal angle behind the attack. “There is no communal angle behind the lynchings,” he said. The Chief Minister added that the sadhus and their drivers were trying to drive into the Union Territory when they were stopped at the border by the police. The occupants of the vehicle then tried to enter Gujarat from a rural road passing through the village when they were attacked by the local villagers.

Forest officials and local police personnel who tried to protect the sadhus were attacked by the villagers. One police vehicle was smashed and rolled over by the villagers in the video footage circulated on social media.