Mob assaults speech-impaired, pregnant woman in Delhi on suspicion of ‘lifting children’

It was the 70-second video of the mob assaulting the woman, identified only by her first name Priyanka, as she sat crying and begging for mercy and drinking water that led her family to know about her whereabouts and eventually united them.

A 26-year-old speech-impaired woman, who is also five months pregnant, was assaulted by a mob that suspected her of kidnapping children in east Delhi’s Mandoli Extension on Tuesday, said police.

A videograb of the incident as recorded by a local. (Sourced)

It was the 70-second video of the mob assaulting the woman, identified only by her first name Priyanka, as she sat crying and begging for mercy and drinking water that led her family to know about her whereabouts and eventually united them.

Police registered a case based on the video on Sunday. Three suspects — 27-year-old electrician Deepak and 52-year-old homemaker Shakuntala and 29-year-old professional photographer Lalit Kumar— were arrested in the case for assault.

“We have found no evidence that the woman was a kidnapper. Once the video went viral, a case of causing hurt and wrongful restraint was registered at Harsh Vihar police station on Sunday,” said Atul Kumar Thakur, deputy commissioner of police (north-east).

“The arrested suspects told us that they saw a mob beating up a woman on suspicion of kidnapping children and so, they also joined them in thrashing her,” said the DCP, adding that
efforts are on to identify the others.

The woman, whose family lives in a slum in south Delhi’s Tughlaqabad, was married to a sanitation worker in Faridabad last year. Her mother, in a complaint to the Faridabad Police, accused her daughter’s husband and in-laws of harassing her for dowry in the recent months.

The missing FIR registered in Faridabad and the complaint filed by the woman’s mother against her husband both said she was pregnant.

“When she went missing on August 18, it was the third time she had been kicked out of her home for dowry,” her brother Sandeep Kumar alleged. The woman’s husband could not be contacted for his version.

While the Faridabad Police are yet to determine the circumstances of her disappearance, the police in Sector 7 had registered a missing complaint on the statement of the husband on August 22. In his statement, he told the police that his wife had left home “willingly”, but without informing anyone while he was away at work. He later visited the woman’s mother and siblings to inform them of her disappearance.

On Wednesday, it was a shopkeeper in the Tughlaqabad slum who came across the video. “The shopkeeper received the video on WhatsApp and alerted me. An address in Mandoli Extension was mentioned on a building in the background after which we visited the Harsh Vihar police station,” said her brother.

The video showed members of a mob repeatedly punching the woman, asking for her name and accusing her of kidnapping children even as she screamed and cried to be let off. “She was offering money to children,” one person was heard saying. “This is how they kidnap,” another said.

“She will die, but won’t tell the truth,” a third person was heard saying. The woman, who couldn’t speak due to her disability, folded her hands and touched the feet of a man in an apparent attempt to get them to stop the assault. When she signalled for drinking water, a man in the crowd brought a log.

DCP Thakur said that by the time the police reached the spot, the mob had fled. The woman was brought to the local police station and let off hours later.

“When we visited the police station the next day, the local police were clueless about her location. So we put up her posters in east Delhi neighbourhoods. On Friday, the police called to say that they had traced her,” said her brother.

Another police officer said that no first information report (FIR) was registered on the day of the assault as the woman couldn’t communicate about the thrashing.

“Later, her family did not want an FIR and refused her medical examination. Once the video went viral, we decided to file an FIR suo motu,” said the officer.

The woman, meanwhile, has received non-fatal injuries to her head and limbs. “She can’t even tell us how she landed in Harsh Vihar. She only signals about pain in her head when we ask her anything,” her brother said.