Viral Sach: Did a viral message lead to 18 deaths in Jharkhand?

NEW DELHI: Rumours of child abduction that spread like wildfire across the tribal belt in Jharkhand's southern districts have taken several lives, claimed a widely circulated message on social media. In back-to-back incidents on May 18, seven persons were lynched - Sheikh Naim, Sheikh Sajju, Sheikh Siraj and Sheikh Halim chased and killed at villages in Rajnagar in Seraikela-Kharswan while brothers Vikas and Gautam Verma and their friend Gangesh Kumar Gupta murdered in Nagadih, Bagbera in East Singhbhum - all because they were strangers in those areas and suspected to be child-lifters. Sheikh Naim, Sheikh Sajju, Sheikh Siraj and Sheikh Halim were travelling in an Indica car. Their vehicle mistakenly broke barricades that were fixed by villagers to catch child-lifters. All four were chased, labelled as abdutors and lynched by the villagers. Though a sizeable number of police had arrived at the spot by 9pm, a mob of about 2,000 people, most of them drunk, tied the victims to a pole and thrashed them with sticks and boulders in the presence of the police. In another incident, apparently, the three brothers who were in the business of constructing septic tanks at homes of urban slums and suburban villages, had gone on two bikes to survey areas where there was scope of getting some work orders in Nagadih. They also fixed flex banners with phone numbers at many places to attract customers. "Whether rumours are spread by vested interests to mobilise mobs or not, it will be a part of investigation. The state government has formed a committee to probe the incidents and after it's report thing will get clear," DGP Jharkhand said.