More than 30 villagers assaulted an alleged timber smuggler on Sunday night leading to damage in his right eye and kept him hostage for over 10 hours at a village in Shikaripara block of Jharkhand’s Dumka district, in another instance of alleged mob justice in the tribal hinterland. Police later rescued him from captivity.

According to Shikaripara police, residents of Inderbani village claimed that “wood smugglers” from other parts of the district had been coming to their village and illegally cutting sonajhuri (Acacia auriculiformis) trees on private land at night for the past few weeks.

On Sunday night, the villagers could again hear sounds of trees being cut by machine and they gathered and quickly reached the spot around 11.30pm to find six persons escaping on a bike.

However, they managed to catch Rajkumar Gorai, 37, a resident of Saraydaha village under the same police station area.

Inderbani is around 17km from the Dumka district headquarters and around 285km from state capital Ranchi.

“The irate villages beat up Gorai and the assault caused damage to his right eye as there was profuse bleeding from it. They also kept him locked in an Anganwadi (rural childcare) centre with an intention to punish him further in the morning.

“We got information and rushed to the spot. We rescued him around noon on Monday after a police team led by Dumka subdivisional police officer Noor Mastafa managed to convince the villagers,” said Sanjay Kumar Suman, officer-in-charge of Shikaripara police station.

The police officer said that an FIR has been lodged against five villagers on the basis of the statement of Gorai on Monday evening. However, no arrest has been made even 24 hours after the rescue.

Mustafa said that they found Gorai tied with ropes and kept inside a locked Anganwadi centre on Monday.

“Despite the resistance of villagers we managed to rescue him and took him for treatment to a private hospital in Mohulpahadi. Doctors there referred Rajkumar Gorai to Dumka Medical College and Hospital.

“On Tuesday, the doctors at Dumka Medical College and Hospital referred him for advanced treatment to Calcutta. We would be in a position to say if the vision would be restored in his right eye only after treatment in Calcutta. We sent him to Calcutta on Tuesday evening.

“We will be taking stern action against all the accused named in the FIR so that such instances of mob justice are not repeated,” said Mustafa.

According to data collected by Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a platform of human rights organisations, around 29 Muslims and tribal people have been allegedly lynched in the state since 2016.