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Nearly two dozen people were arrested as part of the killing of five men in northwestern India suspected of being triggered by a WhatsApp rumor. This is the latest in a series of attacks triggered by unconfirmed reports broadcast on the popular email application.
Police in the central Indian state of Maharashtra apprehended 23 people after a crowd beat five men in a remote village on Sunday. Press reports. The men were suspected by local residents to be kidnappers, which police attribute to a message circulating in the area on WhatsApp, warning that active gangs of kidnappers.
Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister of Maharashtra But reprimands from the authorities have been powerless to stem the attacks, which have seen more than 20 innocent bystanders killed by local militias inflamed in recent months, according to Indian media. Here's what you need to know:
A mob fell on a group of seven or eight men Sunday in an isolated tribal village in Dhule district, in the state of Maharashtra, according to an Indian newspaper The Hindu ] Men, members of a nomadic community according to The Hindustan Times were suspected of being kidnappers.
After seeing one of the men talking to a local child in a market, the group was arrested and beaten by local villagers, clubbing five of them to death. Two police officers were also injured in the fray.
"The crowd was ruthless," said police officer Mr. Rajkumar, according to AP
17 other people are believed to have participated in the incident. Those already arrested have been accused of murder and riots and the victims have been identified by the authorities, although their names have not been disclosed.
Police also imposed a curfew in the village and deployed auxiliary forces.
Twenty-seven people were killed in 13 incidents of vigilante attacks inspired by fake WhatsApp messages warning kidnappers or organ harvesters since the month of May, according to the Times of India . Many attacks have targeted strangers in remote communities, including people from another region or who speak a different language from the crowd.
The attacks also covered the sub-continent, from the southern state of Tamil Nadu. A 45-year-old woman was killed in early May after giving sweets to children in northeastern Assam, where two men were killed after being arrested for seeking instructions in June from Western Gujarat where a 45-year-old woman was killed.
In another incident in Maharashtra this week, police helped a family of five, including a two-year-old child, who were assaulted by a crowd of thousands, AP said.
The Indian government is pondering rumors circulating on WhatsApp, which has some 200 million monthly users in India, making the country the largest market for enforcement, according to the Washington Post . The application, which expands its reach before the national elections in India next year, has introduced new features to identify transmitted messages, making it easier to report broadcast messages en masse.
Meanwhile, local authorities have tried to solve the problem themselves. In Maharashtra, police distributed pamphlets to demystify messages; In addition, the police have set up new surveillance stations to identify and pre-empt incendiary reports before they take off, according to the BBC. In June, the police joined the civilian demonstrators in the city of Hyderabad to protest the spread of rumors
"When rumors start to circulate on social networks, it takes time to stop them completely," said Mukesh Agarwal. BBC
The authorities are facing a difficult battle in rural areas, where digital literacy is weak. In East Tripura, Internet and SMS services were suspended last week after a "riot of rumors" hired by the local government to educate local villagers was killed by a mob, reported Agence France-Presse.
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