Women with babies beaten up by mob in Vaniyambadi

This followed an agitated crowd assaulting two men and three women, all related to each other and belonging to Coimbatore district.

Police said that a girl working in a hosiery company in Tirupur went missing and suspicion turned to a youth working in the same company and hailing from Vaniyambadi.

The girl’s relatives Vinod Kumar (24), Santosh Kumar (25), Santhamma (38), Meera (21) and Anjali (18) hired a van and arrived at Vaniyambadi on Wednesday night. Even as they scoured various localities in Vaniyambadi to locate the two, villagers grew suspicious of the group, especially with Meera and Anjali holding infants in their arms.

Suspecting that the babies were stolen, the crowd beat them up and handed them over to the Taluk police who admitted them to local hospitals for treatment. But within a short while, a crowd of more than 200 from nearby villages descended on the police station and demanded that the five culprits be shown to them.

As the police pleas failed to convince the villagers, the Coimbatore group was paraded before them and the crowd dispersed after nearly five hours.