5 lynched to death by Maharashtra villagers after child-lifting rumours  

Five persons were killed in Maharashtra's Dhule district on Sunday by villagers, who suspected that they were part of a gang of child lifters, police said. The five, along with a few others, were seen getting down from a state-run bus in the tribal Rainpada hamlet, police said.

When one of them apparently tried to speak to a girl child, villagers, who had gathered for the weekly Sunday bazaar, pounced on them, they said.

"Five were killed in the mob fury," police said.

According to police, there were rumours for the last few days that a gang of child lifters was active in the area. The bodies are being taken to the nearby Pimpalner hospital, they added.

A similar incident happened in Chennai where two persons were beaten up by locals on suspicion that they were trying to abduct a child. However, both of them were rescued and admitted to a hospital

In the past month, incidents of mob lynchings have been reported from vaious parts of the country after suspicion of child abductors. On June 8, a mob in central Assam lynched two young men from Guwahati after suspecting that they were child abductors. Three people, including a man hired by the Tripura government to spread awareness against rumours of “child lifting”, were killed in the state earlier this week

With PTI inputs