Suspected cattle thief lynched by irate mob in Assam

An irate mob in Assam’s Golaghat district on Monday killed one person suspecting him to be a cattle thief and set on fire the vehicle driven by the victim carrying six cattle even as the mob blocked the National Highway 37 in the area agitating against the police’s failure to curb cattle theft.

Police said that the incident took place at Rangamati area under Dergaon police station in the district around 2.30 am on Monday. The victim had been identified as one Junti Ali of Morigaon district, police said.

“The local people intercepted a van around 2 am on Monday, which was carrying six cattle. The driver of the vehicle was asked by the locals to produce receipts from where he procured the cattle. The driver, however, could neither produce documents of procurement nor explain to the people about the whereabouts of the cattle,” police said while quoting the locals.

“This led to the suspicion that he is a cattle thief and people started beating him. More people joined later and the person breathed his last before the arrival of the police. The locals freed the cattle and burnt the vehicle,” said the police.

It may be mentioned here that the locals have been reporting to the police about frequent loss of their cattle for a long time. There is, however, no action by the police to solve the problems and it is believed that the failure of the police to handle the cattle theft has only led to the incident on Monday wee hours.