Police arrest 3 after Catholic man lynched in India

Three people have been arrested in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand in connection with the lynching of a Catholic man, according to police.

David Minz, a 35-year-old tribal Catholic was beaten to death on Dec. 14 for allegedly molesting a girl with learning difficulties in Ranchi district.

Three people were arrested on Dec. 16, police said.

“The Jharkhand government in 2021 passed a law to check mob lynching but still we hear about it,” Ratan Tirkey, a former member of the tribal advisory committee in Jharkhand, told UCA News.

According to him, the allegations against Minz were a pretext to kill him.

“Wait, till the investigations are over,” he said.

It is part of a conspiracy against Christian missionaries and Muslims,” the tribal Catholic leader added.

According to the state-run Press Trust of India news agency,  Minz used to sing in the Nagpuri language and many of his songs were hits on social media platforms.

After being beaten with sticks, Minz was declared dead by doctors at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Science.

Three family members of the girl were involved in the crime and were arrested following a complaint by the victim’s wife, police said.

They were remanded till Dec. 22, police said.

India has seen an unprecedented number of attacks against Christians and Muslims after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.

There are 1.4 million Christians, mostly from tribal background, among Jharkhand’s population of 33 million.

As such there are there are several social and education centers run by missionaries in the state .

Tirkey said “Jharkhand has become a testing ground for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent outfit of the ruling Hindu party.

The RSS wants to convert India into a theocratic nation where society is segregated by caste.

Under the caste system, downtrodden people are destined to serve the three higher castes and Christians and Muslims are treated as outsiders.

“When they [RSS] can’t match the missionaries, they go after them,” Tirkey said.

“The RSS believes in the divide and rule policy.”

Mukti Tirkey, a tribal activist based in capital in New Delhi told UCA News that “most of the time personal enmity and property disputes are used to crush Christians and Muslims.

Jharkhand alone has seen four mob-lynching cases this year.

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