Ranchi police have decided to seek the help of NGOs and local representatives to spread awareness among the people not to take the law into their hands after back-to-back lynching cases in the span of a week.

Ranchi senior superintendent of police Surendra Kumar Jha on Monday directed all the 44 officers-in-charge of police stations in the Jharkhand district to take the help of local elected representatives and NGOs for an extensive awareness drive among the masses against mob justice.

“We will be taking the help of mukhiyas (panchayat chiefs), zilla parishad members, ward councillors and local MLAs to help the police stations concerned in reaching out to the masses against taking law into their own hands and beating up people suspecting them of involvement in some crimes.

“The officers-in-charge have also been directed to disseminate information using the public address system on the patrolling jeeps,” said Jha.

The local representatives and police officers have also been asked to inform the masses about rigorous imprisonment after being convicted in mob lynching cases.

“We would be trying to spread information among the people that they should hand over any suspect caught by them to the police. Almost all the village heads and mukhiyas possess the mobile numbers of local police officers and it would take less than 10 minutes for the police patrolling unit to reach the site of the incident to catch the suspects. During the awareness drive, we will inform the people that if convicted in lynching cases, they could face rigorous imprisonment upto 14 years which may ruin their entire life and career.

“People will also be asked to inform immediately to the local police officials about any mob conspiracy in their locality,” said Ranchi rural superintendent of police Naushad Alam.

Relatives of the deceased at the Angara police station on Sunday Manob Chowdhury

Alam said that nine accused have been arrested in the lynching of 26-year-old Mubarak Khan in the wee hours of Sunday.

Mubarak was tied to a pole and beaten to death for allegedly stealing tyres and battery of a motorcycle in Maheshpur village of Sirka panchayat under Angara police station on the outskirts of Ranchi around 2am on Sunday. Mubarak used to drive a bread container for deliveries.

However, relatives of the deceased alleged that personal enmity led to his killing claiming that he had a dispute with some of the villagers a few days back and they had beaten him to death.

This is the second incident of lynching in the Jharkhand capital this month. Earlier, 22-year-old Sachin Kumar Verma was beaten by a group of labourers in the Upper Bazar area in Ranchi on March 8 on the suspicion of vehicle theft. He was taken to the police station and succumbed to his injuries before he could be taken to the hospital.

In the last 12 months, around 12 mob lynching cases have been reported in different parts of Jharkhand.