Four persons were arrested and sent to jail within a few hours of chief minister Hemant Soren tweeting a video of a man being beaten up by a mob in Giddi on Sunday night and urging Jharkhand police to take immediate action.
Hazaribagh superintendent of police (SP) Mayur Patel said victim Javir alias Raju Ansari, 32, a resident of Patratu in Ramgarh, was attacked on the suspicion of being a child lifter and four persons had been sent to Jai Prakash Narayan Central Jail in connection with the incident.
“A three-member team has been set up to probe the matter,” he said, adding that the youth is undergoing treatment at a Giddi hospital.
Patel said the incident took place when Ansari was returning from his in-laws’ house at Haidarnagar in Giddi, around 60km from Hazaribagh and Ranchi.
“On his way back home to Jai Nagar at Patratu in Ramgarh, Ansari stopped his bike near a government school in Tedhatand Basti in Giddi around 9pm and started walking. Suspecting him to be a child lifter, around 10 villagers surrounded him and started beating him with sticks,” Patel said.
Before things went out of hand, someone informed Giddi police station, situated only a kilometre away, about the incident.
A police team reached the spot on time and rescued Ansari.
Later at night, a Twitter user called Sazid Saeed uploaded the video of Ansari being assaulted.
It was retweeted by another user Ravi Prakash who tagged Hemant and requested him to intervene.
The video shows Ansari lying on the ground and being beaten with sticks.
However, the faces of the attackers can’t be seen in the clip.
SP Patel, who visited the spot on Monday afternoon, said Ansari was jobless and mentally disturbed.
“It was his weird behaviour that raised the suspicion of villagers. He is under treatment and doing well,” he added.
Giddi police officials said Ansari had a quarrel with his in-laws and taken a different route via Pachhadi village while returning to his home .