Two more people held in Dhule lynching case, total arrests now stand at 25

Superintendent of Police (Dhule) M Ramkumar said their arrests were crucial as they had caused grievous injuries to the victims. “In the videos, it is clearly seen a youth who had red hair dye his hair was assaulting the five victims with an iron rod. This helped us identify him when the team reached Nandurbar. The second accused was also arrested from the vicinity,” he said.

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The police, so far, has found 40 clips of the incident, which was shot by bystanders on their mobile phones. “Our focus is to arrests those who assaulted the victims and not the bystanders. We have managed to lay our hands on 40 mobile clips and are studying those to zero down on the accused,” Ramkumar added.

Of the 25 arrested, while seven are from Rainpada, the rest of the accused are from the neighbouring hamlets located at a distance of two to twenty kilometres. On July 1, five members of the Dongrinanthpanthi Gosawi community, nomads who beg for a living, were killed by a mob of over 3,500 men in Rainpada hamlet of Dhule in Maharashtra, located around 350 kilometres from Mumbai, suspecting them of being child lifters.

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The victims were identified as Dadarao Shankarao Bhosale (36), his brother Bharat (45), Bharat Malve (45), Aagnu Srimant Ingole (20) and Raju Bhosale (47). While Raju hailed from Gondwan village of Karnataka, the others were residents of Mangalweda in Solapur district. The victims were related to each other.