Incensed Indian Mob Lynches Rape Suspect

35-year-old dragged for 4 miles was thought to be illegal Bangladeshi national
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 6, 2015 8:50 AM CST
Incensed Indian Mob Lynches Rape Suspect
An angry mob killed a suspected rapist in India.   (Shutterstock)

In an out-of-control incident being described as a "Bastille-like storming," thousands of furious Indian protestors busted into a Dimapur jail, removed a suspected rapist, and lynched him yesterday, the Hindustan Times reports. The mob reportedly broke down two prison gates and stripped down Farid Khan—a 35-year-old used-car dealer accused of raping a girl "several times" in February—before beating him and dragging him more than 4 miles to the local clock tower, where they planned to hang him. Khan reportedly died of his injuries before the group reached its destination, though his body was strung up anyway. Overwhelmed police unsuccessfully tried to gain control of the situation by firing into the crowd (the Times says they were shooting blanks); at least 20 people were injured, and the crowd retaliated by throwing stones and setting police vehicles on fire.

India has been on edge over a banned rape documentary in which filmmaker Leslee Udwin interviewed one of the men who gang-raped a young Indian medical student in 2012. Mukesh Singh's remorseless interview and outrageous comments about women have incited protests across India, the BBC reports. But the BBC also flags long-simmering tensions between locals and Bengali speakers who are believed to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh: Khan was suspected of being Bangladeshi, and before he was killed, the mob had been protesting outside a city office about licenses issued to nonlocal shopkeepers, per the Times. "Khan's death caused by a barbaric and bloodthirsty mob of over 10,000 was not a result of anger against a rapist: The trigger for such violence was obviously the rape, but within it lies [an] issue of territorial pride," Simantik Dowerah writes for Firstpost. (More India stories.)

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