Tabassum Khatoon (25), the widow of Angara lynch victim Mubarak Khan , met chief minister Hemant Soren at his office in the state Assembly on Tuesday and submitted a memorandum demanding Rs 50 lakh compensation, a government job for herself, and assistance for education of her two minor children.
“I wasn’t at home when the incident occurred. I was at my parents’ house. I rushed to the village early in the morning after getting the news. My husband is innocent and earned living by working as a driver,” she pleaded before Hemant.
Khan was killed early on Sunday by a mob on suspicion of stealing a tyre and battery of a bike at Sirki village in Angara block on Ranchi outskirts. Khan’s family and relatives have, however, named 18 people in an FIR alleging a conspiracy to murder him due to personal enmity.
During the lunch break of the day's Assembly proceedings, Congress’s MLA from Jamtara Irfan Ansari took Khan’s wife and her children to meet Hemant. While Ansari has himself demanded Rs 10 lakh compensation to the next of kin of Mubarak, his widow has sought Rs 50 lakh.
Ansari said he has demanded that the guilty be arrested and a speedy trial held to bring them to justice. “Whatever happened shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. The entire allegation of he (Mubarak) being a thief is a concocted story,” he said, charging the BJP of giving it a communal colour. “I even learnt that the BJP is playing dirty games now to give the incident different spin,” he said, but did not elaborate.
Later talking to reporters, Tabassum said she was worried about her children’s future. “My husband was the lone earning member of the family. I don’t know how we will manage and raise my kids,” she wept.
Ranchi police have so far arrested 9 named accused. SP(rural) Naushad Alam said that raids were on to trace the remaining accused.
Mubarak's lynching was the second such incident in Ranchi within 10 days. On March 8, Sachin Kumar was lynched by a mob of about 40 people under Kotwali police station area in the city on the suspicion of theft.
