The techie and his 3 friends had driven down from Hyderabad to the village in Bidar for natural honey
Highlights
- New video is horrifying look at Mohammad Azam's last moments
- Police are seen pleading with the mob with folded hands
- Eyewitness said villagers tried to stop attack, but outnumbered
A 32-year-old software engineer is dragged face down through a muddy field with a rope tied to one hand, in a new video accessed by NDTV of last week's mob-killing in Karnataka's Bidar.
Mohammad Azam, a UK-educated Accenture employee, died on Friday after being beaten by villagers crazed with WhatsApp rumours of kidnappers.
The new video is another horrifying look at Azam's last moments. The police are seen pleading with the mob with folded hands.
Azam and his three friends had driven down from Hyderabad for a day's picnic to the village in Bidar. They had heard that this was the place for the best natural honey.
One man in the group had relatives in the village where the mob attack took place.
When Azam and his friends stopped to share chocolates with schoolchildren, villagers assumed they were kidnappers - fed by WhatsApp rumours.
"We distributed chocolates to both adults and children in the village. Then we asked for lunch to be cooked at my relatives place and went to see a scenic water body by our farmland. That is when three men came and started taking air out of our car's tyres. We asked why. By the time a crowd gathered and started saying we are child lifters. My uncle came and explained that I am related to him and why we had come. But no one would listen," Afroz told NDTV.
"Everyone here knows us but the crowd mood was such that no one was willing to listen to me," Afroz's uncle said.
Among the 28 people arrested for the murder is Manoj Kumar Biradar, the admin of the WhatsApp group called "Murki mother"; Murki is one of the two villages.
Another accused is Amar Patil, 22, who transmitted the message.
Sensing danger, the Hyderabad group got into the car and made a dash for it. The gleaming new car, without a number plate, just served to heighten the villagers' suspicion.
As the car sped off, phone calls were made from the Handikhera village to Murki village to "stop the new red car".
Villagers blocked the only way out with a fallen tree. The car hit it and toppled into a ditch.
Mohammad Azam was then dragged out of the car, kicked, beaten with stones, sticks and whatever the crowd could get its hands on.
Murki village's Rajkumar Patil Murli told NDTV they had been told the men were carrying away children hidden in the bonnet and that they were carrying weapons. "That is what made everyone enraged and they took the law into their own hands. Including women," Mr Patil said.
The police apparently tried to save the men but were also attacked by the wild crowd; some of the cops stayed with two of the men inside the car for almost an hour, keeping the crowd away.
An eyewitness, Govind from Murki, said many villagers tried to stop the attack. "Some wanted to give water to those injured. But we were simply outnumbered. Their insane anger defeated our sane reasoning. When they wouldn't listen to police, would they listen to us," he said.
Azam's family is in shock. "My brother was a software engineer, father of a 2-year-old. He was just a regular guy... How can they think they were kidnappers?" said his brother Akram.