Mentally-disturbed man thrashed by locals over kidnapping suspicion

Bengaluru: A mentally-disturbed man was mercilessly beaten up by a mob in the state capital on suspicion of him being a child-lifter.

On Wednesday evening, the 25-year-old man, a native of Odisha was seen wandering in Patalamma Layout here and rumours of him belonging to a gang of child-lifters started doing the rounds. The locals gathered in large numbers to teach the man a lesson. He was tied to a tree and assaulted by the mob while filmed the entire incident.

Reportedly, one of the residents told the people that he had received a WhatsApp message saying that four child lifters had entered their area and that he suspected him to be one of them. 

The Kadugodi police rushed to the spot after getting an alert and took the man to the police station. According to the police the man is suffering from mental illness.

Nearly two months ago a software engineer had become a victim of mob-lynching in Bidar over WhatsApp-driven rumours of child kidnapping.

Despite several awareness programmes, advising people not to pay heed to rumours, such mob attacks over child lifting rumours continue to happen.