14 held for Bengaluru lynching, fear psychosis grips Karnataka

BENGALURU: Fourteen people, including two minors and four women, were arrested by Chamarajpet police in connection with Wednesday’s lynching of Kaluram, 26, by an angry mob which mistook him to be a child-lifter.
A fake video showing child thieves from neighbouring states has triggered panic across many districts in Karnataka, and even reached Bengaluru. On Thursday, videos of Kaluram’s lynching went viral on social media, triggering outrage among civil society.It also helped police arrest the culprits.

Of the eight men arrested, the police identified six — Ambu, 26, Vasanth Kumar, 32, Gopi, 18, Balan, 30, Nanda, 20, Tirumalesh, 28, and Rajesh, 18 — while withholding the name of one person for the sake of investigation. The women have been identified as Anusha, 30, Susheela, 37, Indira, 37, and Vani, 41, while the two others are minors.
DCP (West) Ravi D Channannavar said: “We have requested the Rajasthani community living in Cottonpet, Chamarajpet and neighbouring areas to help hand over the body to his family members.”
He added that directions have been issued to police personnel across the city to create awareness about the fake child-lifters’ video and also distribute pamphlets.
On Wednesday, it was the Cottonpet police that first received information that a man — now identified as Kaluram from Rajasthan — was being beaten up by a mob in Pension Mohalla, near Ranganath Talkies. Although the area is under Chamarajpet jurisdiction, Cottonpet ASI Rajashekaraiah rushed to the spot with his staff when the mob which was beating up the man with cricket bats and lathis, dispersed.
The police were able to identify Kaluram with the help of his Aadhaar card, which remained in his pocket despite the mob dragging him for more than 100 metres. Kaluram was rushed to a local hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
One police officer who visited the spot on Wednesday said that most of the people who assaulted Kaluram didn’t know why they were doing it. “They just joined in,” he said. Also, police are yet to establish who spread the word that Kaluram could be a child-lifter.
DG&IGP Neelamani N Raju, while conceding that rumours of child-lifters are being spread across the state through fake videos, said: “I had directed all the district SPs and commissioners of cities to check on missing children in their respective jurisdictions, but they informed me that no case of any missing child matches the modus operandi of such an organized gang operating in the state.”