Updated 4.25 pm
INDIAN POLICE ARE investigating two separate lynchings in which men were beaten to death by frenzied crowds in anger over alleged assaults on young women.
A curfew has been imposed on Dimapur city after a suspected rapist was pulled out of a jail and lynched by a mob.
The man, who stood accused of raping a woman multiple times and was arrested last week, was dragged out of the prison in Nagaland state before being beaten to death and strung up, according to media reports.
“A mass protest rally against the rape was held at Dimapur this morning after which students and angry people forced into the district jail and managed to pull out the accused,” the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Another report said that the crowd started marching towards the jail from a location almost seven kilometres away.
The Hindustan Times newspaper said the crowd “tore down two gates and took custody” of the suspect, before dragging him to the town’s landmark clock tower.
The suspect was then stripped naked, beaten and his body was strung up to the tower, the newspaper said.
“The situation is very tense,” town police superintendent Meren Jamir told the Hindustan Times. ”We are trying our very best to restore order.”
Meanwhile, another man was killed in a mob attack in the northern city of Varanasi after a group of girls alleged they were molested while celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi on Friday, police said.
“The irate crowd assembled following a complaint by some young women to their families that they were molested… by a few men from that area,” according to Anil Kumar of the local police station.
“We are investigating into the mob violence and also ascertaining whether the deceased was one of the alleged molesters. The dead man is in his fifties and was beaten with sticks. So far, three people have been arrested.”
India is already in midst of a raging controversy over a government order to ban the broadcast of a documentary about the December 2012 gang-rape of a young student.
The incident, which sparked outrage both within India and around the world, highlighted the frightening level of violence against women in the world’s second most populous country.
The Indian government has also asked video-sharing website YouTube to block access to the documentary, claiming that its broadcast violated certain key agreements with the filmmaker.
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