Curfew clamped in Dimapur; situation grim
Guwahati: A suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrant accused of rape was lynched by a mob in Dimapur town of Nagaland on Thursday evening after he had been forced out of Dimapur Jail by the mob overpowering the jail guards.
Indefinite curfew was clamped in Dimapur town following the incident and police opened fire to control the mob that had gone berserk in the town.
A senior police official informed that the suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrant Syed Sharif Khan who was accused of rape of a local Naga college student in Dimapur, was on Thursday forced out of the jail by an angry mob led by Naga students and some social organisations and lynched.
He said the situation in the town was grim and indefinite curfew had been imposed.
The rape accused had been latched to a car by the mob and pulled around the city street before he died. The accused was a used car dealer based in Dimapur and married to a woman of the Sema tribe.
Tension was running high in Dimapur town after the girl had lodged an FIR with the police accusing Khan of committing rape on her on Feb 24 last. He was arrested by the police and was sent to judicial custody on Tuesday on production before a court in Dimapur.
A large mob of people including members of Naga students’ bodies and representatives of various civil society organizations and citizens stormed Dimapur Jail and pulled out the rape accused. Police miserably failed to mobilize forces in time to prevent the mob from storming into the jail.
Tension was already running high in Dimapur in the wake of lodging of the FIR by the rape victim.
A large group of about a thousand people had laid siege to the Deputy Commissioner’s Office in Dimapur on Wednesday demanding stringent punishment to the rape accused.
Prominent Naga students’ bodies and various Naga social organisations had taken the lead in the protest.
