Kidnap rumours spark mob attacks in India

AHMEDABAD, India: Indian police urged people Wednesday not to believe false rumours spread on WhatsApp after a woman was killed and a dozen hurt in the latest mob attacks to leave authorities looking powerless.

In the worst of the five assaults in the western state of Gujarat on Tuesday, a destitute woman, Shantadevi Nath, and three others were attacked by around 100 people in the main city Ahmedabad.

"Half a dozen people surrounded the women as they were about to board an auto-rickshaw and started questioning them. Soon the crowd swelled and pulled Shantadevi and her companions out of the rickshaw and started thrashing them," police official JA Rathwa told AFP. "People in the crowd rained punches and kicked the four women. Some even hit them with sticks and pulled them by their hair."

The women were finally rescued by local traffic policemen and taken to hospital but Nath, 45, was declared dead on arrival. The same viral message which sparked that incident, alleging that 300 people had descended on Gujarat looking to abduct and sell children, appears to have triggered four other mob attacks there the same day.