New Delhi: When migrant worker Ashok Das emerged with a bleeding hand from the house of a woman friend on Thursday night, a mob grilled him about what business he had to do there. Das panicked and tried to escape, but the mob of 50-60 people allegedly caught, “thrashed him for an hour” and tied him to an iron pole in Kerala’s Muvattupuzha.
The police reached the spot at Valakam after a call was made and took him to the hospital, but the 24-year-old man from Arunachal Pradesh succumbed to his injuries the next day.
Preliminary investigation revealed that it could be a case of “moral policing”, ThePrint has learnt.
According to sources in the Ernakulam police, Das had gone to visit his woman, a co-worker earlier, in Valakom village near Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam rural district. The woman lived with another woman — a law student who was also known to Das.
“Das and the woman had worked together at a hotel in Valakam earlier. That evening, he had gone to the house and consumed alcohol around 5:30 pm. His friend went to work at the hotel and he was with the other woman. There was a heated argument. She called up the woman (victim’s friend) who returned home. He hit a glass window and injured his hand,” a police officer told ThePrint.
It was about around 9:30 pm when Das stepped out of the house and was intercepted by the mob, according to the police sources. “He was scared and tried to run away but the mob tied him to a pole and started hitting him. This took place for an hour,” one of the sources said.
Ernakulam Rural Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Saxena told ThePrint that the two women haven’t lodged any complaints against the victim.
“We are investigating all angles to establish the motive. Investigation is at an initial stage. We are probing if it was a premeditated murder, if there was any long-standing dispute between the victim and the accused, or if there was any sort of contact between them, or if there was any conflict between the women and the neighbours,” Saxena said.
An First Information Report (FIR) was lodged after the incident and 10 people have been booked for murder, so far. Both the women have recorded their statements.
Das was taken to a nearby general hospital and later shifted to another hospital, where he died on Friday. The autopsy report has mentioned blunt force trauma to the chest and head as the cause of death.
The Ernakulam Rural SP further said that Das initially had managed to escape the mob.
“A neighbour had called on other people to catch him. He managed to run away the first time but they spotted him later and then tied him to a pole. The police were informed and teams reached the area within 10 mins. It appears that he was beaten up during the process of catching and tying him up, resulting in fatal injuries,” Saxena said.
“As per the current facts, the conflict between the women and Ashok Das was their personal matter. No cross FIR has been lodged against Das.”
Sources said that the *women* tried to intervene and stop the mob but the men in the group started insulting them as well. “The women tried to save him. He was inebriated and the argument was a personal issue between them,” one of the sources said.
It appears that some neighbours, who were part of the mob, had overheard the argument and surrounded the victim with the intention of moral policing, the source said.
There was no information on how long the migrant worker was based in Ernakulam but Das spoke Malayalam fluently, the source said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)