Brother-Sister Tied To Tree, Thrashed As Villagers Doubted Character

In a bizarre incident from Madhya Pradesh's Khandwa, villagers thrashed a man and his sister after tying them to a tree. The victim man had come to the village to meet his cousin sister, Kalavati, whose husband wasn't home at the time. The two then sat on a cot in a courtyard outside the house. While they were talking, some villagers spread a rumour about their 'objectionable' character.

The villagers, from the Bamanda village under Piplod police station area of Khandwa district, then gathered and made both of them sit under a tree near the village, and thrashed them with thin wooden sticks. Someone recorded a video of the incident and tried to make it viral on social media, after which the police registered a case against three people and arrested them based on the victim's complaint.

Some videos showed the victims pleading with the mob, and repeatedly telling them that they were cousins, but the villagers didn't relent. Police said the woman's husband also told the mob on a phone call that they were indeed cousins, but they kept assaulting them instead until some relatives got word and rushed to save their lives.

Someone informed the police, who reached the spot and rescued both the victims and took them to a hospital. Three people were arrested, and others involved in the assault are being traced, they said.