WARANGAL: In a case of mob justice, villagers burnt alive a 25-year-old after he tried to molest and kill a teenager at Raghunathapalli in Jaffargadh mandal, Warangal district on Tuesday.The twin acts were shocking enough but what is even more so was the fact that the youngster was torched in the presence of police.According to locals, Babu from Terumalapally in Wardhannapet mandal knocked on the doors of 18-year-old Mounica, who had recently completed her intermediate from Pingali college in Hanamkonda, this afternoon and sought a glass of water. Her parents, Uma and Mahava Reddy, both daily-wage workers, were not present in the house at the time. As an unsuspecting Mounica went inside to get water, Babu barged in and tried to outrage her modesty.She resisted him and screamed for help. In the scuffle, Babu bludgeoned her with a hammer and took to his heels.A neighbour, who rushed to Mounica’s house upon hearing her cries for help, saw her lying in a pool of blood and alerted the other villagers some of whom went after Babu on motorbikes. The police, who arrived on the spot, rushed the girl to the MGM hospital in Warangal.In the meantime, the villagers caught Babu while he was washing himself at a well on the outskirts of the village. Initially, the youngster was thrashed and handed over to the police. But as news trickled in that Mounica’s condition was critical, the irate villagers, numbering over 1,000, pulled him out of the police van and beat him black and blue. The handful of policemen, including a sub-inspector, reportedly made a vain bid to stop them but were warned off with the argument that cases will not render justice to the girl.Some of the women dumped hay and gunny bags on Babu, poured kerosene and set him on fire. “We were questioning him but the women were seething with rage and dragged him away from us and set him on fire,” a police officer later told reporters. It is not yet clear as to why Babu went to Raghunathpalli and in fact what he used to do for a living. District superintendent of police J Prabhakar Rao visited the village and took stock of the situation. Later in the evening, Mounica was shifted to a hospital in Hyderabad for better treatment.
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