Basta (Balasore): Rumours on social media about child-lifters have put the lives of nomads here in harm’s way, as they were attacked by a crowd Monday evening.
A group of over 20 nomads and their children were living in the premises of the Sambhunath government high school for the past couple of days. The male members of the group were collecting honey from beehives, moving from village to village, while the children were engaged in begging.
Some locals Monday evening noticed two minors and a male gypsy holding knives. Soon, a crowd gathered there. When asked for their identity, the nomads failed to give any satisfactory answer. Mistaking them as child-lifters, they started beating them.
Basta IIC Dhaneswar Sahoo along with his team reached the spot and rescued the gypsies. They were then asked to leave the place for good.
In another incident reported from Soro in the same district, an old woman was thrashed by locals, suspecting she was a child-lifter. The Soro police rescued her.
Balasore has witnessed three such incidents of mob fury in the past two days.