E-Paper
3, including a woman, lynched in Jharkhand; 2nd incident in 24 hours
This was the second incident of mob lynching within 24 hours in Gumla district.
Three people, including a woman, were lynched by villagers with sticks and sharp weapons after the trio allegedly strangled a man, who had opposed the illicit relationship of his wife, in Jharkhand’s Gumla district, around 100-km from capital Ranchi, police said on Tuesday.
The incident took place in the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday at Deragdih village under Sikoi Panchayat. This was the second incident of mob lynching within 24 hours in Gumla district. On Monday morning, a former member of the ultra outfit People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), was lynched by a mob of more than 80 villagers, including women with sticks, at Tesera village under Sadar police station in Gumla district.
Police reached the village on Tuesday morning and sent all four bodies for post-mortem. The man, who was strangulated, was identified as Marianus Kujur, 42, while his wife was identified as Nilam Kujur, 35. The two other persons, who were allegedly in an illicit relationship with Marianus’ wife, could not be identified.
The Gumla superintendent of police (SP) Hrudeep P Janardhanan said, “As per the villagers’ statement, the two youths who had come from other places had illicit relationship with Marianus’ wife. When they were killing Marianus, he screamed. Hearing his voice, his family members, relatives and villagers came and they killed the two youths and his wife.”
Janardhanan said the two youths have not been identified yet. “We have recovered a moped bike on which they had come. The registration number of the bike is of Simdega district.”
He said two FIRs would be lodged in the case-one for murdering Marianus, while another for killing three other persons by villagers. “We are identifying the villagers involved in the crime and arrests would be made soon,” he said.
Marianus’ family members at the village said he was a migrant worker and returned from Pune just before the announcement of lockdown in March. They said his wife had developed an illicit relationship when her husband was not in the village. Marianus and his wife often had a dispute over her illicit relationship after he returned from Pune. The wife had called the youths to kill her husband, they alleged.
Marianus’ younger brother’s wife Sarita Kujur said, “The two youths had come on a moped bike in late evening on Monday. When they were strangulating Marianus, he screamed loudly. Then, we all including the villagers ran to his house. But, by then Marianus had died. The youths tried to escape but villagers caught them and killed them along with Marianus’ wife with sticks and sharp weapons.”
The mob lynching incidents in the state have hit the headlines nationally on several occasions. The Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JJM) has claimed that a total of 24 people were lynched in Jharkhand from March 2016 to June 2020.
