Bhubaneshwar: In a bizarre case of public taking law into their own hands, some unscrupulous locals on Sunday punished a youth by tonsuring and humiliating him suspecting him to be a thief in Odisha’s Balasore district.
The incident occurred at Nuabaazar vegetable market under Sahadevkhunta police limits where the locals caught a youth in connection with a bicycle theft.
In their eagerness to deliver ‘instant justice’, they beat him. His ordeal continued for more than an hour as they tonsured his head, blackened his face and moved him around half-naked in front of villagers, including his parents.
The humiliation did not stop here. The irate persons tore his shirt and wrote ‘Chura’ ( thief in English) on his chest and back.
He was also forced to parade on the roads as part of punishment for allegedly stealing the bicycle. The onlookers witnessing the entire episode were the mere spectators, but did not make a call to police to hand him over. No case has been registered. The identity of the youth was yet to be known.
