The victim of mob lynching in India this time was a middle-aged, mentally challenged woman. The incident occurred in Madhya Pradesh in India following a WhatsApp rumor that the woman was a child-lifter.
According to the police, the victim’s body was found near the place of incident, in a forest.
“We got information about a dead body being dumped in the forest on Sunday morning following which a team was sent to the spot. The injuries on the body suggested that she had been lynched,” police stated.
Police took statements of the people from the area where the incident occurred and went on to register a murder case against unidentified people.
Police has detained six accused people and they are likely to be arrested today. In another incident that took place on June 29 and was quite similar to this incident, a mob attacked two forest officials but the police reached in time and saved the officials.
These accused men informed police that they caught hold of a woman who seemed to be making suspicious movements after they had seen a lot of messages on WhatsApp related to child-lifters lurking in the city.
Police said that they will investigate who initiated this rumor and the ones who played a role in making it viral will be booked under relevant sections.
Such similar incidents are definitely a nightmare for any country and WhatsApp has been given warning by India to take serious measures to stop the spread of fake messages that are leading to mob lynchings and if WhatsApp fails to do so, Indian Ministry plans to take a legal action against WhatsApp.
WhatsApp really needs to come up with a concrete strategy to control the fake messages from going viral which is leading to ongoing lynching cases in India because if WhatsApp fails to do so, this trend might pick up in other countries and many countries would then be left with no option but to ban this Facebook-owned messaging service.
