Mob Lynches School Official In Eastern India After Death Of 2 Students

The head of a school in a village in the eastern Indian state of Bihar was killed by a mob over the death of two students. Villagers suspected the involvement of the school's teachers in the deaths of the students, aged about 7 and 8, after their bodies were recovered from a ditch with injuries and blood stains on their faces.

The mob reportedly pelted stones, vandalized the two-room school building and set fire to it, and also torched two school vehicles. Devendra Prasad Sinha, the injured school official, was taken to a local hospital but was referred to another facility in the capital city of Patna, about 50 miles from the school in Nalanda district where he succumbed to his injuries, the Times of India, a local newspaper, reported.

A senior police official told Hindustan Times that the students may have died after accidentally falling into the ditch, which was filled with rainwater. “It appears they had gone there to relieve themselves when two of the group slipped and fell into the water and drowned this (Sunday) morning. It had rained yesterday and the water level in the ditch had risen,” the official said, according to Hindustan Times, a local newspaper.

Incidents of mob violence are not uncommon in India, BBC reported. In March, in the northeastern state of Nagaland, a suspected rapist was taken from a prison, beaten and dragged naked in public before being hanged.