Behrampore lynching victim Khabir Sheikh’s widow Aklima Biwi sat downcast on the mud floor of the family’s thatched hut in Sahazadpur village on Thursday, receiving mourners and struggling to believe how he could be accused of “theft and insanity”.

“I had been worrying all (Wednesday) afternoon because my husband did not return from a simple chore he had left for in the morning. Sometime around 5pm, my neighbour Selima called to tell me what she had seen in Behrampore,” Aklima recalled. A school dropout, the 29-year-old is the mother of two daughters, aged 12 and seven.

Khabir was beaten to death on Wednesday inside a clinic in Behrampore by employees of the establishment who branded him an “intruder” and accused him of “attacking them with chairs”. On Thursday, clinic owner Asok Boral, 50, and employee Ranajit Biswas, 55 were arrested.

Khabir was murdered even before the Bengal anti-lynching bill, passed last week with stiffer punishments like the death penalty, could become law. The incident highlighted how vulnerable sections are becoming victims of mob fury, prompting some state governments to try and enact laws to prevent lynching.

In Sahazadpur, Khabir’s body was brought from Behrampore, 10km away, on Wednesday evening and his last rites completed.

Khabir Sheikh. Picture by Chayan Majumdar

On Thursday, neighbours and relatives recalled Khabir as an “earnest” man, contrasting starkly with the image projected by the clinic staff of an “insane perpetrator who broke into their clinic”. “Khabir spent five years in Saudi Arabia as a labourer. He returned home this February and worked as a mason,” said a neighbour.

He earned between Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000 a month, supporting his wife and daughters. “We have been left in fear and despair. We don’t know what will happen now. We lived with what Khabir brought home every day,” said Aklima.

The elder daughter is a student at a local madarsa while the younger one studies in a local primary school. According to Aklima, with her husband no more, meeting basic needs such food or other necessities will be a struggle.

At the clinic in Behrampore on Thursday, preliminary investigations did not match the employees’ account of Khabir as an intruder.

“It is clear Khabir had come to Behrampore to buy some tools for a construction job he was performing in the village. We suspect that he came into the clinic because he was feeling unwell. Preliminary probe suggests a scuffle broke out between Khabir and clinic staff,” said a police officer.

Aklima said what had pained her the most was that her husband was being accused of “theft and insanity”. “Khabir had come home to eat around 9am (on Wednesday) and said he was going to Behrampore to buy some tools. He was happy and healthy,” said Aklima.

Sources had said on Wednesday that Khabir was beaten ruthlessly by clinic staff inside one of their chambers.

“Our probe suggests that after an initial scuffle, Khabir locked himself in a chamber for protection and agreed to open it when a traffic constable knocked on the doors. But it seems this constable was overpowered by some clinic staff who lynched Khabir before a larger police team could arrive,” the officer said.