Thirty-five-year-old Ramesh* was waiting at the outskirts of a village to meet his lover, a married woman, when some villagers started questioning him about his identity. When he refused to divulge his details, a group of angry young men attacked him and tied him up. Within minutes, the whole village had gathered around him.
They were convinced he was a member of the child-kidnapping gang that dismembers children; they were warned of such groups on WhatsApp.
As the frenzied mob were about to lynch him, a village elder called the police. Constables from the nearest police station rushed to the scene and rescued Ramesh.
This is not an isolated incident. Fake news, spread on WhatsApp and other social media, is inciting mob-violence across India. Two people were lynched to death in Telangana, a dozen others were nearly killed in Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. Three weeks ago, a 65-year old woman was lynched to death by an angry mob in Thiruvannamalai in northern Tamil Nadu, and a man was beaten to death in Chennai. All of these mob-attacks were spurred by WhatsApp forwards that warned them of child trafficking gangs.
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