While the Murabari incident reportedly took place, when Khan and two other hawkers -- Khushit Khan from Uttar Pradesh and Gulzar Khan from Bihar -- reached the tribal-dominated area around 9:30 am from Bitterban, an urban slum, to sell garments on a vehicle. Locals suspected them to be child lifters and started assaulting them, police sources said.
Chased by the mob, the hawkers and their driver ran into the nearby Tripura State Rifles camp, police said. As the situation went out of control, the TSR personnel fired several rounds in the air and also burst tear gas shells, but the mob continued to beat the men. While Khan died on the spot, Khushit, Gulzar and their driver Swapan Miah were seriously injured in the attack, police said, adding that a constable Sumit Sanyal was also injured.
"There were around 300 to 400 people who attacked us. They suspected us child lifters in reference to the Mohanpur incident. I showed them my driving licence, Aadhaar and identity cards but they still attacked us,” Miah told news agency PTI.
A day ago, in a widely-circulated video, a mob was purportedly seen beating a man, who is yet to be identified, on the suspicion that he was a child kidnapper.
In view of rumour-mongering, director-general of police Akhil Kumar Shukla issued a notification on Thursday, suspending all SMS and Internet services for the next 48 hours.
"It has been noticed that SMS, WhatsApp and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are being widely used for transmission of fake images, videos and text messages which have the potential to incite violence in the state," the notification stated.
The nation has witnessed several incidents of mob violence following rumours on social media in the past a few months, leading to assaults and murders. One of the first cases was reported from Obanapalle village in Andhra Pradesh on April 28 when locals thrashed a mentally unsound man to death.
On the same day, another mentally unstable man was hacked to death by a mob in Vellore district in Tamil Nadu after several WhatsApp posts claimed that around 200 miscreants from “north India” either entered or were entering into the state to abduct children. Two more similar incidents came to light from the state within two weeks.바카라 웹사이트
Similar incidents of people being thrashed over social media rumours were also reported from several states including Odisha, Karnataka and Gujarat.