Mobile Phone Thief Caught by Medical Students in Kolkata, India

A mob of junior doctors tied a suspected thief of a pillar, beat him with sticks and used a razor to slash his penis, then left him to die, police in India said. Two people have been questioned over the attack at a medical student dorms in Kolkata, West Bengal, in which a man was beaten with bamboo sticks before his genitals were mutilated. Police found the 30-year-old victim lying in a pool of blood shortly after the attack on Sunday. A senior officer said the victim's body bore 'the marks of inhumane torture'. The killing highlights the problem India has with mob justice, with angry crowds dishing out summary punishments to suspects whose guilt has not been properly tested. 'Preliminary inquiries have revealed that nearly a dozen junior doctors picked up the man on suspicion of stealing mobile phones,' Kolkata police said. CCTV footage shows the attackers taking the man in to the hostel building from main gate. They caught him from outside the hostel, then dragged him into a room at the state-run Medical College and Hospital, tied him to a pillar and carried out the attack, before leaving him to die. 'Some of them even slashed him on his private parts,' Commissioner De told, adding that labourers working nearby alerted police to the attack. 'Police found the man lying in a pool of blood. A razor was also seized from the spot,' he said. 'The kind of wounds on his body bear the marks of inhumane torture,' he tol, saying the unidentified man was declared dead on arrival in the emergency room. A witness to the lynching told media the incident began shortly after 4pm when a student doctor saw a man put his hand through the window and grab a nearby mobile phone. The student doctor's screams for help brought a crowd running to his aid. 'By then, the man ran to main block. He broke a window pane and tried to escape but some of our boys climbed a wall and pulled him out,' the witness, also a junior doctor, said. 'Then everyone started assaulting him.' The mob dragged the suspected thief to another room of the hostel and continued beating him, witnesses said. He was then tied to a pillar outside the room and residents started thrashing him with rods. It reported that police sources had said a post-mortem examination found the victim died of internal haemorrhage caused by the beating. Around 1,000 students live in the student accommodation, but only 200 were there when incident took place. State deputy health minister ordered an inquiry, describing the incident as 'very shocking'. Students said theft was common at the hostel. 'There are no guards at the entrance, including at night. Anyone can enter the hostel,' a junior doctor said. Students anger over the repeated thefts had boiled over when the suspect was caught, he said.