Two hours later, the police visited the village to make inquiries. They returned on April 14.

“No outsiders were seen in our village after that, but people kept vigil at night,” said Deshak, the sarpanch. “On April 15, the police conducted a meeting of gram panchayats and told us that if we got hold of the thief we should not beat him, we should hand him over to the police.”

At night, the fear peaked. Several villagers would wander the periphery of the village until dawn, armed with sticks and torches. As Deshak put it, the rumours “engulfed” villages across Dahanu and Talasari.

Shantaram Dagla, the sarpanch of Sarni village, said the rumours reached Sarni on April 12, leaving the villagers “fear-stricken and violent”.

“On the night of April 12, villagers received calls from their friends in Nikne, saying thieves had escaped from Nikne and might enter Sarni next through the hills,” Shantaram said. “Some villagers said they saw thieves but couldn’t catch them. Some said they chased thieves but the thieves disappeared. The rumours spread in many villages of Palghar. All the rumours said the thieves were robust, tall, well-built, and cover their faces with a cloth.”

These things happen in villages, Shantaram added. “Villagers tend to call their relatives in other villages, and rumours spread.”

Violence preceding the lynching

Before the killings on April 16, two incidents of violence had taken place in the area.

In Sarni, a doctor named Vishwas Valvi, who had come to distribute rations, was attacked by the villagers on suspicion of being a thief.

“It was around 8.45 pm and the doctor and two associates were driving by in his car,” Shantaram said. “Our villagers were patrolling the road near Sarni, and they stopped the car and blocked the road.”

Shantaram was present at the time, he said, and checked Vishwas’s ID card.

“I came to know that he was a doctor but many villagers were not ready to believe it,” Shantaram said. “They repeatedly said the three people in the car were thieves. Such was the effect of rumours that our villagers refused to believe them...The villagers were very suspicious and asked why rations were being distributed at night.”

Finally, Shantaram said, the police were called. They lathicharged the villagers, prompting the latter to pelt stones.

Vishwas told Newslaundry he himself had a “narrow escape”. He had been visiting Urse village to distribute ration kits when his car was stopped by a large group of villagers.

“Luckily the village sarpanch knew me and identified me but the crowd of over 200 people was not ready to listen,” he said. “They were drunk and some of them were shouting to hit me. I reasoned with them but they weren’t listening.”

Vishwas said the police were patrolling nearby and he called them. “The police explained to the villagers they would take me to the police station but the mob wasn’t backing off,” he said. “The police resorted to lathi-charge after which the villagers began pelting stones at us. Somehow we had a narrow escape.”

Vishwas said he was “horrified” when he read about the three murders in Gadchinchale. “They were brutally killed,” he said. “We were just lucky that we escaped: it wasn’t just an escape, it was a big escape.”

The second incident of violence had taken place at a roadside dhaba at Dhanivari village.

Kanshiram Handwa, the village sarpanch, said the rumours reached Dhanivari on April 13. The residents began patrolling in and around the village, often staying awake all night to “catch thieves”.

“People from my village even mistook some migrants working at a dhaba as thieves,” Kanshiram said. “Eight of them were living in the dhaba, which is closed because of the lockdown. The villagers said some thieves are hiding in the dhaba and attacked them. Somehow we managed to stop them, and called the police. When the police came, the villagers ran away.”

“The information about so-called thieves was shared without any confirmation,” he added. “Those poor sadhus were not killed because of religion or political conflict: they were killed because of rumours and fake messages.”

‘Rumours have made this place very dangerous’

Sarpanches of the villages of Rankol, Ganjad and Kasa had similar stories.

Rumours of “thieves” prowling the area started rippling through Rankol on April 13. At 10 pm that day, Dilip Gadag, Rankol’s sarpanch, was asleep when his phone began to ring.

“I received a call from a villager who had received a call from a relative in Ganjad,” Dilip said. “He told me thieves went to Ganjad but escaped and were now heading to Raitali, which is not far from Rankol. He said we should be cautious. Five minutes later, someone I know well called me from Raitali, saying thieves are coming to our village.”

Dilip received a third phone call a few minutes later. This time, he was told the thieves were near the village’s ashramshala, or school. “Then two minutes later, I got phone calls from villagers saying they had chased the thief but he disappeared suddenly.”

Dilip said these rumours made the atmosphere “very tense”. “On April 14, a police complaint was filed as some villagers threatened two people from Nalasopara, asking them to leave,” he said. “Officials from the Kasa police station asked me to come to the station over the complaint. But I asked them to come to the village instead; it had become too risky to go out with all these rumours.”

Residents were patrolling the village, Dilip said, wielding weapons and sticks. “They could have attacked me if they mistook me for a thief,” he pointed out.

The police arrived at Rankol that night to investigate the complaint. But since their vehicle did not have a police light, 15-16 villagers ran towards it, suspecting it was carrying thieves, Dilip said. “They only backed off when the police came out.”

Dilip added that no one had actually seen a thief: they just heard about their presence or read messages about it. “The rumours have made this place very dangerous,” he said. “It started with Nikne and engulfed many villages.”

Niwas Vartha, the sarpanch of Ganjad, agreed. In Ganjad, he said, the rumours were more specific. “Rumours did the rounds that thieves were coming at night and taking away small children to harvest their kidneys,” he said. “Villagers went berserk and searched relentlessly for these ‘thieves’ for three or four days, patrolling the village at night with lathis and torches. If someone casually shouts, the villagers would run towards this person, screaming ‘chor, chor’.”

Raghunath Gaikwad, the sarpanch of Kasa gram panchayat, said the rumours made it dangerous to travel through Dahanu, Talsari, and other rural areas of Palghar, especially at night. He also began receiving phone calls about thieves from April 13.

“Kasa is a big gram panchayat, comprising four villages. I received calls from the panchayat officials from other villages,” Raghunath said. “A panchayat official from Ghol told me he was very worried; he said villagers are roaming with lathis and if they catch someone, it could lead to a dangerous situation.”

Yet, even the murders in Gadchinchale haven’t laid the rumours to rest.

Several sarpanches told Newslaundry that the atmosphere of fear and suspicion persists. Just one day after the murders, a man from Tamil Nadu was assaulted by 17 people in Dahanu’s Gholwad village on suspicions of being a thief. The police intervened and took him to a hospital.

How WhatsApp messages boosted the rumours

Newslaundry accessed messages of a pair of WhatsApp groups formed by people in Dahanu. Both groups had messages warning of “child thieves” roaming the villages.

In a group of Palghar’s residents called “Batami Adivasi Samajateel”, or “News of an Adivasi society”, a user named Kamlesh Katela posted on April 14:

“Friends, beware. On the night of April 12, 2020, thieves came to the villages of Ranshet, Vadhna, Nikne, Ganjad and Sarni. The thieves are tall and well-built, and they look like Muslims. They peep through the windows of houses and barge in if they see small children or teenagers. Friends, I request you to share this message in large numbers.”