New Delhi: A 26-year-old man with disabilities died after he was thrashed with sticks after being tied to an electricity pole by a group of men in Delhi's Sunder Nagri, police said on Wednesday. He was thrashed on suspicion of theft.
Seven people, including a juvenile, have been held in connection with the incident, they added.
The accused have been identified as Kamal (23), Manoj (19), Kishan (19), Pappu (24), Lucky (19), all residents of Sunder Nagri, and Yunus (20), a resident of Garima Garden in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, police said.
The incident took place on Tuesday morning and the victim succumbed to the injuries later in the day.
A video purportedly of the incident shows the victim, Isar, tied to an electricity pole, with people beating him up with sticks. A man is heard saying "don't beat him" but the others keep thrashing him even as he pleads for mercy. The attackers are also heard hurling abuses at the victim.
The victim was a person with disabilities, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast) Joy Tirkey said.
"When he failed to answer the questions of local residents, they tied him to a pole and thrashed him with sticks," he added.
A case of murder has been lodged on a complaint from fruit vendor Abdul Wajid (60), a resident of Sunder Nagri, alleging that his son Isar died after he was brutally assaulted by some people on suspicion of theft.
"According to Wajid, when he went home around 6.30 pm on Tuesday, he saw his son lying outside and groaning in pain. There were injury marks all over his body," the DCP said.
It has been alleged that Isar told his father that around 5 am, some men caught hold of him near block G4 and accused him of stealing. They then tied him to a pole and thrashed him with sticks.
Their neighbour, Aamir, brought Isar home in a rickshaw around 3 pm. The victim succumbed to the injuries at around 7 pm and his father made a PCR call at around 10:45 pm, the DCP said.
The accused have told police that around 5 am, they saw Isar lurking around the area and thought he was a thief. They started asking him questions but he was unable to give proper answers. The accused then tied him up to an electric pole and thrashed him, the DCP said.
The post-mortem examination of the victim was conducted at the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital on Wednesday. The doctors found blunt-force injuries all over the body. The cause of death was shock and haemorrhage, police said.
The role of some other suspects is being ascertained, police said, adding that further investigation is on.
(With PTI inputs)
