Two lynched for 'cow theft' in Jalpaiguri

Two suspected cow thieves were lynched at Dhupguri in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district in the wee hours of Sunday.

They were identified as Hafizul Seikh and Anwar Hussain. While Seikh was a resident of Dhubri in Assam, Hussain was from Patlhawa in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district. "We have started an investigation. We're trying to find out whether the two were cattle thieves or traders ferrying cows. The bodies have been sent for post-mortem," said a senior police officer.

The incident took place around 3.30 am at Dadon village in Dhupguri area near the India-Bangladesh border. Three persons had been travelling in a pick-up van with some cows and had lost their way. Locals chased the van and stopped it. The driver managed to escape, but the two others could not.

After a brief altercation, villagers suspected that the two were cattle thieves and beat them to death. The police took the two to a hospital where they were declared dead on arrival.

Earlier in June, three Muslim youths, suspected to be cow thieves, were killed by an irate mob at Durgapur in North Dinajpur district.