Jalpaiguri, July 23: In another incident of mob violence, four women were allegedly assaulted and two of them stripped by a mob in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Monday on suspicion of being child-lifters. The incident took place at Dawkimari village in Dhupguri block. This is the fourth such incident in the district in which people were attacked on suspicion of being child-lifters.

Amitabha Maity, Jalpaiguri superintendent of police, said that four women, aged between 20 and 50 years, were not locals and the mob assaulted them as it did not believe the answers they gave to the questions posed to them. As per reports, one woman was looking for a relative, while another said she was visiting her kin. The third woman used to sell clothes door-to-door, and the fourth woman had reportedly come to a neighbourhood bank.

According to Maity, the mob then allegedly assaulted them and disrobed two of them after suspecting them to be a child-lifters. The police rescued the victim and took them to a nearby health centre, where their condition was reported to be stable.

Till now no arrest has been made in connection with the case, but the police have several people. “We are creating awareness on this through media. People should contact the police on the helpline if they find someone suspicious, but not to take law into their own hands,” Maity said.

This is not the first time, that such kind of incident reported from the area. Earlier this month, several people were injured at the Kranti area of Mal block in the district when the locals pelted stones on the suspicion of being child-lifters roaming in the area. A few days later, a young man was allegedly assaulted at Balapara in Sadar block on suspicion of being a child-lifter.

Incidents of mob violence after believing social media rumours of child lifters have claimed many lives in the country. In major incidents of mob lynching, On July 1, five men were beaten to death in Maharashtra's Dhule district after locals suspected them of being child-lifters. Similarly, Three lynching incidents were reported from Tripura in the last week of June, where locals after believed rumours on social media mistook the victims as child-lifters. In a recent incident of mob lynching, a 25-year-old mentally retarded woman was beaten to death in Madhya Pradesh’s Singrauli district on Saturday.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 23, 2018 11:11 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).