By The Wire Staff
New Delhi: Mohammad Athar Hussain, a cloth vendor who was robbed and assaulted by a mob that later cut his ears and fingertips off with a plier and branded him with a hot iron in Bihar’s Nawada district on December 5, succumbed to his injuries on the night of December 12, according to a news report by the Indian Express.
According to the police, eight people have been arrested and detained so far.
Assault in lieu of help
Fifty-year-old Hussain was returning to his home in Barui village in Nawada district on the night of December 5 when his bicycle – on which he sells his ware – needed urgent repairs. Being near Bhattapar village (which comes in the Roh police station limits), Hussain asked a group of people about a puncture repair shop nearby.
They asked his name and profession and then assaulted him, cut his ears, beat him with a heated rod, Hussain’s brother Mohammad Shakib Alam told Indian Express.
As per the news report, Hussain had recounted the horrific details of his assault in a video after the incident. He mentioned how his assailants first asked his name, then pulled him off his bicycle and robbed him of money. The mob allegedly numbered 15–20 people.
Hussain said that the assailants tied his hands and feet, locked him in a room, and beat him up.
“They beat me with bricks and rods, breaking my fingers and hand. They even cut my ears and finger ends with pliers,” the newspaper quoted Hussain as saying. He also alleged that the mob had stripped him to check his private parts, branding his body with a heated iron rod that “peeled his skin off”. One assailant climbed on his chest and throttled him, causing blood to gush from my mouth, Hussain had said.
An emergency 112 call led the Roh police to the village at around 2.30 a.m., The Indian Express quoted a source in the police department as saying. The police rescued the grievously injured Hussain and took him along with several suspects to the police station.
The police took Hussain to the Roh Primary Health Centre (PHC), which then referred him to Nawada Sadar Hospital and finally to VIMS, Pawapuri. He was under treatment at the hospital when he succumbed to his injuries on the night of December 13.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.