Sambalpur: Five persons have been arrested for allegedly assaulting a migrant labourer from Kerala in Sambalpur town on suspicion of him being a child-lifter. The arrests followed the circulation of viral videos of the mob attack on social media.
The victim, identified as Vishnu Sibu (31), a resident of Alleppey in Kerala. He was rescued by police on Sunday evening and admitted to a hospital for treatment. He was discharged and sent back to Kerala on Monday, with his condition reported as stable.
According to police, Vishnu had been working as a welding labourer in Baragada district but was unemployed for several months. He had arrived in Sambalpur about two weeks earlier in search of work. He was near Dhobapada Chhak at around 10 am on Sunday under Khetrajpur police limits when locals confronted him due to his appearance and inability to communicate effectively in Odia or Sambalpuri. His failure to respond clearly to questions about his identity raised suspicions that he was there to commit a crime, particularly amid prevailing rumours of child-lifting. A crowd gathered, assaulted him, checked his belongings, and dragged him in the incident captured in circulating videos.
Sambalpur Additional Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Mishra stated that preliminary inquiries confirmed Vishnu had no criminal background and was simply seeking employment. Police examined the viral videos and local CCTV footage to identify the perpetrators.
Authorities have urged caution against rumour-mongering that fuels vigilantism as this comes days after a similar mob attack in Rayagada district, where two young NGO workers, including a woman from Delhi, were brutally assaulted on June 16 near Kandulguda village in Kalyansinghpur block after being mistaken for child-lifters for carrying backpacks and speaking Hindi. At least 24 people have been arrested in that case, which is under investigation.
Odisha police’s Investigative Units for Crime Against Women (IUCAW) are probing the Sambalpur case, and a petition has been filed with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking compensation for victims of such incidents.
