Fake News Menace: Another Man Lynched On Rumours Of Being A Kidnapper In Chattisgarh
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Fake News Menace: Another Man Lynched On Rumours Of Being A Kidnapper In Chattisgarh

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Another man was lynched based on rumours circulated in social media. The latest incident happened on Friday, June 22, in Chhattisgarh’s Sarguja district, where a man was beaten to death on suspicion of being a child abductor.

According to NDTV reports, the victim, who seems to be around 40 years old, has not been identified yet. The man reportedly arrived in the village on Friday morning and being a stranger aroused the suspicion of the local people.

According to the police, the people became more suspicious when he didn’t answer their questions about who he was or where he was from. Since rumours about a gang of child lifters wandering the locality are being spread over social media, the agitated villagers thought the man was a part of that gang and beat him to death. As per reports, police said around ten people from the village were arrested, and they have started a probe on this incident.

This is just the latest incident on an increasing number of lynching deaths based on fake social media messages. According to reports similar mob attacks in Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Assam have claimed the life of at least 22 victims so far, solely based rumours circulated through WhatsApp messages.

Lynchings in India

According to Indian Express for the first time, The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) will publish a data on lynching in the Crime in India, 2017 Edition. Several media reports suggest that in the year 2018 alone, 14 cases of mob lynching have led to the death of at least 21 people. Among these cases,11 were reported to have occurred based on suspicions of child kidnapping and three on suspicion of theft.

An NCRB official was quoted saying, “With so much going on, we thought it would be prudent to collect authentic data on lynching across the country and analyse the reasons that lead to murderous behaviour by mobs. This, we hope, will help policymakers come up with cogent solutions for such ghastly incidents. Data is the first step in the formation of policy on any subject”. Since 2015, the Quint reports that around 99 deaths were registered due to mob lynching. Fact Check portal, Boom Live has reported that at least 15 people have been killed in the year 2018, so far.


Also published on Medium.

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Editor : Ankit Sharma Sharma

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