A curfew was imposed yesterday in a small town in India’s northeastern Nagaland state, bordering Myanmar, after a
mob stormed a prison, dragged away an alleged rapist and publicly lynched him.
Police said more than 4,000 people overpowered guards at the Dimapur jail more than 2,000km from New Delhi early on Thursday afternoon and seized Farid Khan (35), arrested for allegedly raping a local college girl on February 24th.
The mob stripped the immigrant from neighbouring Bangladesh and dragged him 7km through the streets to the town's landmark clock tower. Having beaten him along the way, they then hung his body from the tower.
When police later tried to remove the body, the crowd pelted them with stones and burnt some of their vehicles.
Burning shops
The crowd then retreated to a nearby market place and set about burning shops and houses belonging to Bangladeshi immigrant traders, many of whom had settled illegally in Dimapur decades earlier.
There is an enduring animosity against these migrants, who locals blame not only for taking away jobs and appropriating land, but accuse of cornering all trading activity.
“The situation is tense and we are making all-out efforts to restore normalcy,” Dimapur magistrate Wezope Kenye said.
“We have clamped a curfew in Dimapur district to contain the law and order situation following the unfortunate incident,” he said.
The police, he added, had used tear gas to try to prevent the mob from storming the jail, but failed to do so.
Nagaland chief minister TR Zeiling appealed to all media organisations to refrain from using images of the lynching, in a bid to “mitigate” the possible ramifications of the incident and bring about calm.
The largely tribal “Nagas” – as the state’s people are called – are an intensely proud people and fiercely protective of women.
Mongol in origin, they are primarily Christians, having been converted by Jesuit priests who established missions in their remote, mountainous province towards the end of the 19th century.
Vigilante justice is not unheard of in India, but rarely occurs in Dimapur.
But in recent years India has seen an outpouring of public anger against rape and other forms of sexual violence that is increasingly being reported across the country.
According to official statistics a rape takes place in India every 20 minutes, and female and human rights activists accuse the authorities of doing little or nothing to ensure women’s safety.
Rape crisis
There was a renewed focus on India’s rape crisis this week following the federal government’s decision to ban
India’s Daughter
, a BBC documentary that examines the fatal gang rape of a 23-year old paramedic in December 2012.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s administration, without even seeing the film, said on Tuesday that it would also initiate steps to prevent it from being aired globally.
