Taxi driver 'forces' 11-yr-old in vehicle, mob beats him on child-lifting suspicion

Bolpur (West Bengal): A middle-aged man was severely beaten up by villagers in Bolpur town on Monday on suspicion of his being a child-lifter, police said.

The villagers alleged the man, who was driving a taxi, tried to force an 11-year-old girl into his vehicle when she was playing in a field at Rajatpur, in the outskirts of Bolpur town.

As the girl raised an alarm, the villagers began chasing him. The man tried to speed away in his taxi but eventually had to stop at a traffic jam when they caught hold of him, the villagers said.

They took him to the village and beat him up severely before handing him over to the police.

The man told the police that he had merely asked the girl for some water to drink.

A senior police officer said the man has been detained and will be interrogated. Several people have been lynched or injured recently in Maharashtra, Assam and Tripura on suspicion of being child-lifters.