Patna: Youth lynched for stealing books

In yet another case of street justice, a man was lynched by a mob in Patna for allegedly stealing books, the police said on Saturday.

The victim, identified as Ram Pravesh Mahto, was brutally beaten to death with bricks, stone and bamboo sticks, after he was allegedly caught stealing books from a printing press at Chakaram intersection, near the Buddha colony police station.

Gaurishankar Singh, the officer in-charge of the police station, said that a case of murder has been lodged against unidentified people in this connection. "The police are investigating the case to arrest the people involved in Mahto's lynching" Singh said.

According to police sources, the angry mob killed Mahto and then left his body on the street. The police later recovered the body. In the last three months, several cases of lynching have been reported from across the state.

Over three dozen lynching incidents were reported last year in Bihar and many more may have gone unreported.

The worst lynching case was reported in September last year, when 10 suspected thieves from the underprivileged Kueri community were beaten to death in Vaishali district. Later, a high-level probe had revealed that the men were innocent.