Patna, May 9 : Villagers in two districts of Bihar Friday lynched five people, including four armed men who had minutes earlier robbed cash from a bank, betraying an unnerving trend towards social intolerance and rise in incidents of instant justice across Bihar.
The four bank robbers were beaten to death in Buxar village, and one suspected thief was lynched in Siwan district, the police said.
A mob of villagers beat to death the robbers who were trying to flee after looting cash from the State Bank of India branch at Chausa village in Buxar district, about 125 km from here.
Buxar Superintendent of Police Amit Kumar Jain told IANS by telephone that the four robbers, all of them youths, were beaten to death after villagers caught them.
Two other robbers were arrested by the police. The robbers had shot dead a security guard of the bank before carrying the cash away. Two motorcycles on which the four robbers tried to escape and pistols with which they fired at the guard and the pursing villagers were seized by the police later.
In Siwan district, Chand Quereshi, 25, was thrashed and then brutally attacked with sticks after he was allegedly caught stealing from a house at Purhatola near Jai Prakash Nagar, about 150 km from here. He later died.
"The victim was brutally beaten up for hours late Thursday night by some people, who alleged that he entered a house for stealing. He was handed over to the police early Friday morning and admitted to the government hospital, where he succumbed (to his injuries)," Siwan Superintendent of Police Umesh Kumar told IANS by telephone.
Two days ago a mob thrashed a youth, Binay Yadav alias Pappu Yadav, and poured acid into his eyes in a village in Purnea district. This incident came a day after a Dalit youth was tortured and beaten to death by a mob in Mallikpura village in Vaishali district, about 50 km from here. He was suspected to have stolen a water pump.
Mob violence in the name of justice is common in rural Bihar. Over three dozen lynching incidents were reported last year and over two dozen cases have been reported in the last four months.
Earlier this week, three suspected criminals were lynched by a mob at Deodatwa village in East Champaran district.
The worst lynching case was reported in September last year when 10 men from the underprivileged Kueri community were beaten to death in Vaishali district on suspicion that they were thieves. Later, a probe found that the men were innocent.
