Members of the mob that stormed a prison in Dimapur, north-east India. Photograph: Imojen I Jamir/AP
Three officials in India’s Nagaland state have been suspended after a mob stormed a high-security jail, dragged away a man accused of rape and lynched him.
Police have launched a search for several men who mobilised the thousands of people who broke into the jail in Dimapur city on Thursday and seized the rape suspect, identified as Farid Khan. The mob pelted Khan with stones and eventually beat him to death.
One other person was killed and several others were injured when police fired to disperse the mob. On Saturday shops and businesses in Dimapur were closed and paramilitary soldiers were deployed to patrol the city, which remained under curfew.
State authorities have suspended the district magistrate of Dimapur, the city’s police superintendent and the jail’s warden. The federal home minister, Rajnath Singh, has called for a report on the storming of the jail.
The killing of Khan, who was arrested on 24 February on suspicion of raping a local woman, has caused concern across India, where there is increasing public anger over sexual violence against women. Human rights groups have warned against vigilantes taking the law into their own hands.
Amnesty International demanded that the lynching be investigated and members of the mob brought to justice. Shemeer Babu, programme director of Amnesty International India, said: “This is a serious lapse in the criminal justice system and the Nagaland government must ensure that every person who was part of the mob is brought to justice. Failure to do so will send the message that anyone can commit outrageous abuses and attempt to justify them as an expression of public anger.”
The incident has sparked protests in the neighbouring state of Assam, where Khan was from. Protesters set up roadblocks in Assam on Saturday and for a while stopped trucks carrying goods and other vehicles from heading to Nagaland.
“There was a roadblock near Lahorijan in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, but the police have since cleared the blockade,” said Assam’s inspector general of police, SN Singh. He added that Assam’s government had alerted police stations across the state to be vigilant against possible retaliation on Naga people in the area. Ethnic Nagas are a majority in Nagaland, and some have migrated to other parts of India.
Thursday’s killing may also have been linked to tensions in Nagaland over an influx of migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. Several local groups accuse the migrants of taking away their land and jobs and have been protesting in recent weeks. Some of the mob accused Khan of being an illegal migrant from Bangladesh.
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