UP: Mob thrashes elderly woman on suspicion of child lifting in Etah; 4 arrested

Lucknow: A 50-year-old woman was brutally thrashed on suspicion of being a child lifter in Uttar Pradesh's Etah district. Police have arrested four persons for thrashing the woman. The incident took place on Sunday in Shringar Nagar area. 
  
A purported video of the incident has gone viral on social media.

In the video, men and women could be seen beating the victim identified as Beena Devi. The incident occurred following rumours that a child lifter has entered the town and took away many small children.

According to a report in PTI, the mob beaten up Devi after they accused her of being a 'baccha chor' (child-lifter). Beena Devi is a resident of Sirmaur in Himachal Pradesh.

Quoting from Etah Superintendent of Police's report, UP's Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Awanish Awasthi said that four persons have been arrested in connection with the matter. Police filed an FIR on the complaint of Devi in Etah on Monday.

"A total of six people were identified in the video footage of the incident and four of them have been arrested so far. They were identified as Jitendra, Varun, Badam Shree and Prema Devi, all residents of Shringar Nagar locality," the report quoted Awasthi as saying. 

The police are also on the lookout for two women accused identified as Sunita and Sheela. Meanwhile, police have requested the people not to fall prey to rumours and warned of strict against those spreading such rumours.

 

Woman beaten to death in Bihar over suspicion of child-lifting

In a similar incident reported on August 24, an angry mob thrashed a woman to death in Vaishali district of Bihar over suspicion of her being a child-lifter. It is alleged that the woman was mentally unstable. The mob allegedly tied the woman to a pole in Sehdai Buzurg block of Vaishali and mercilessly thrashed her until she died. 

The woman was beaten up with sticks by locals after being tied to a pole. While angry locals beat up the woman, others played mute spectators as they watched the woman being thrashed. 

The police are suspecting that the woman lost her mental balance after her child went missing or after it died. The woman was caught by the locals when she entered one of the houses in the district while looking for her own child. 

Locals alleged that they had seen the woman in the nearby areas a few days ago. At that time, the woman was seen attending to a pile of clothes as if it were a child.