Similar to Dhule incidence, in Palghar district nearly 200 people gathered on Dabhadi-Khanvel Road despite lockdown restrictions and brutally thrashed three people to death. The victims included two Gosavi community people who are also of the Juna Akhada were killed besides their vehicle driver. They were travelling from Nashik in an Eco van. They were going from Mumbai to Surat with their driver for the funeral of their accomplice. The lock down was imposed in Maharashtra due to the threat of COVID-19. These travellers had no passes or permissions to travel inside or out of Mumbai. When their automobile reached the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, the police stopped them and dispatched them again. After this, the three determined to proceed by the interior forested path.
Meanwhile, rumours unfold in lots of villages of Palghar district that by profiting from the lockdown, legal components are committing a theft by stealing them. Kidnapping folks and taking out their kidneys. Due to this rumour, the villagers attacked them without enthusiastic about something, and overturned the automobile. The incident was reported to the police, by the time police reached there and put these three of their automobiles however the variety of policemen was very much less in entrance of the large crowd of the villagers, so the policemen ran away leaving all three injured. After this, an offended mob beat them to dying. Later on, three were rushed to the hospital the place they have been declared dead.
Further investigation is being accomplished. About 110 villagers have been delivered to police stations for questioning. The opposition party has asked the government to conduct a high-level inquiry and ensure that the accused are brought to justice at the earliest. The incident took place within the territorial jurisdiction of Kasa Police Station, just about 100 km away from Mumbai. The three victims were allegedly dragged out of the vehicle and brutally lynched by the mob. The opposition parties have raised the issue saying that there have been several shocking incidents of violence in the area in recent times.
Palghar district magistrate Kailash Shinde said that the police rushed to the spot after receiving the information but the aggressive mob attacked them as well. The police vehicle was also damaged by the irate mob. Later more police force was called for dispersing the mob. He urged the people of Palghar to not pay attention to rumours of outsiders entering their villages to commit crimes.
Similarly, when Devendra Fadanvis was Chief Minister of Maharashtra, in 2018 the mob lynched five Nomads over suspicion that they were part of a gang of “child lifters” in Dhule wanted to burn the bodies on the spot. The mob was not satisfied by just killing them. They wanted the bodies to be burnt there only. The police said, there was so much of anger in the mob that they tried to prevent the police physically from taking custody of the bodies. The villagers saw the men, who were dressed in strange saffron attires, offering biscuits to small children. This aroused suspicion that they wanted to kidnap the children. The messages were spread on WhatsApp about children being kidnapped and killed by outsiders and their kidneys sold. But so far no one made any noise about Dhule mob lynching but present politics is heated on Palghar.
A mason from Nilagoti and key eyewitness Vishwas Gangurde told AV that, “Palghar incidence has not surprised me because I have seen similar incidence in our village Dhule, five people were being chased by a crowd of local people, they were begging for life but villagers were mad at them, because they misunderstood them as child pickers”. They tried to hide in a nallah but they were dragged out, beaten and chased all the way to another village Rainpada.”
