In an appalling incident, a 24-year-old man was lynched in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district after an argument over the information he shared about people who came back from Maharashtra on the state government’s helpline for COVID-19, said the police.

The man has been identified as Babloo Kumar who was on way to his uncle’s house when a group of locals thrashed him in an area under Runnisaidpur police station late on Monday.

He was rushed to Runnisaidpur primary health centre where doctors referred him to the Shrikrishna Medical College & Hospital (SKMCH) in Muzaffarpur where he was declared ‘brought dead’.

As per the media reports, Babloo had called the helpline to give information about two people who had returned from Maharashtra with their families to Madhaul village. This allegedly angered the families. His elder brother Guddu said a joint team of medical and local police personnel reached the village and took them for tests and released after advising them home quarantine.

He said Babloo worked in Maharashtra’s Pune and came back to the village two months ago.

A case has been lodged against seven people—Thaga Mahto, Sudhir Kumar, Vikash Mahto, Madan Mahto, Deepak Kumar and Munna Mahto—on the basis of Guddu’s statement recorded by the Ahiyapur police station in Muzaffarpur district.

For the uninitiated, hundreds of thousands of such workers who work in other states have been coming back to their villages after a lockdown was imposed from March 25 to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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