Mob mistakes 65-year-old woman to be child trafficker in Tamil Nadu, lynches her

Chennai: In a tragic incident, a 65-year-old woman was allegedly lynched in Tamil Nadu as the mob thought that she was a child trafficker.

According to The News Minute, Rukmani and her relatives were searching their Kula deivam or family temple in Athirmoor village near Polur, Thiruvannamalai, when a crowd of around 200 villagers mistook them for child traffickers and started beating them. Rukmani, who lived in Old Pallavaram in Chennai, is said to have died on the spot. Four others - Chandrasekaran (34), Mohan Kumar (34) and Venkatesan (51) - along with the car driver Gajendran, were seriously injured.

TNM, Superintendent of Police, R Ponni was quoted as saying by the media house - "The group had crossed the Athimoor village near Polur, via Jamunamarathur, when they stopped near an old lady's house to ask for directions to the temple. None of them had visited the village in a long time and two of them were from Malaysia. When they stopped to ask for directions, they gave chocolates to two children playing near the road. The old lady, on seeing this, alerted the villages saying that they were child traffickers. Within no time, hundreds of villagers gathered and started questioning the group. The senior officers from Thiruvannamalai arrived at the scene almost immediately. However, we couldn't stop the lynching as there were too many of them."

The villagers were reportedly enraged after seeing videos of child trafficking on WhatsApp and thought that the woman and her relatives had come to kidnap children. The mob did not listen to the group even after being told that they were from Chennai and had come to the village to go their family temple.

Later, the injured were rushed to the government hospital at Thiruvannamalai.

The incident, which is said to have happened on May 9, 2018, has reportedly been captured on camera. There are said to be some photos also doing the rounds. Ponni said that the police had received the videos and culprits have been traced.