(Clockwise from top) In a 3-hour clash, cops, RAF and Combat Force personnel dispersed the mob by lobbing tear... Read More

HOWRAH: A mob on Belilious Road at Howrah’s Tikiapara came to blows with the cops on Wednesday night and tried to stop them from rescuing a 40-year-old woman whom they were beating up on suspicion of being a child-lifter. Even as the RAF and Combat Force tried to rein in the rampaging mob, the police managed to rescue the yet-to-be-identified woman and admitted her to Howrah district hospital in an unconscious state. Her right leg had been fractured with bricks, hospital sources said.

At the end of the three-hour clash, which broke out around 11pm, six cops were injured, police said. Locals alleged 20 Tikiapara residents, including women, suffered severe head injuries as the police resorted to lathicharge. Ten locals have been detained.

Howrah has witnessed six attempts to lynch suspected child-lifters over the past 10 days. The affected areas are Belur, Kalibabu Bazar, Tikiapara, Domjur and Jagatballavpur.

“Rumours have been making the rounds across Howrah that toddlers have gone missing from different localities and that kidnappers have been on the prowl. Prompted by these forwards, locals had stepped up vigil in their areas, apparently to catch anyone they suspected to be a child-lifter,” said a resident, Sheikh Akbar. “On Wednesday night, rumours suddenly spread in Tikiapara that a person might have made an attempt to kidnap children from the locality. When the locals spotted this woman, walking on Belilious Road, carrying a bag on her shoulder, they accosted her and started questioning her.” The residents alleged that the woman’s apparently incoherent replies only “increased their suspicion that she was a kidnapper”. Men and women in the locality pounced on the woman and started raining her with blows. “Some saner people like us pleaded with them to stop thrashing her and call police if really suspected her to be a kidnapper. But the crowd refused to pay any heed to our pleas. We alerted the police,” Akbar added.

When officers from Howrah PS reached, the mob started to pelt stones at them. As the clash escalated, the crowd smashed windscreens of police vehicles and other cars parked in the area. Even as the RAF and Combat Force arrived, police lobbed tear-gas shells in the air and allegedly resorted to lathicharge. They managed to rescue the woman after the people could be driven away. Howrah City Police’s DC (zone II) Ananda Nag said, “We are conducting awareness campaigns across localities in Howrah. We will act against those involved.”

