A suspected thief had his genitals chopped off and was beaten to death on Sunday after a lynch mob, surprisingly made up of junior doctors, discovered that the 30-year-old man had stolen mobile phones at a medical college in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, a senior police officer said on Monday. None of the involved assailants have been arrested yet.
In a common case of vigilante justice, a mob of doctors killed a thief by tying him up to a pillar, beating him with bamboo sticks and slashing his penis off with a razor at the 140-year-old state-run Nilratan Sarkar Medical College and Hospital.
"Preliminary inquiries have revealed that nearly a dozen junior doctors picked up the man on suspicion of stealing mobile phones," Calcutta's deputy commissioner of police Dhrubajyoti De told Agence France-Presse.
While two people have been detained, authorities have ordered additional inquiry into Sunday's attack which highlights the widespread problem of mob lynching in India, correspondents said.
The most disturbing part, however, seems to be the involvement of a group of doctors from a leading medical college.
On Sunday, the 30-year-old unidentified suspect was dragged into a room by the doctors, attacked and then left to die in one of the rooms at the medical college, BBC News reported.
"Some of them even slashed him on his private parts," De told AFP, adding that laborers working nearby alerted police to the attack. "Police found the man lying in a pool of blood. A razor was also seized from the spot."
"The kind of wounds on his body bear the marks of inhumane torture," he told AFP, adding that the victim was declared dead after being rushed to the emergency room.
Meanwhile, students told The Telegraph newspaper that repeated thefts at the medical college had left hostel inmates frustrated.
"Mobile phones and laptops have been stolen from the hostel... There are no guards at the entrance, including at night. Anyone can enter the hostel," a junior doctor told The Telegraph.
Describing the horrific incident as "very shocking," West Bengal deputy health minister Chandrima Bhattacharya ordered an investigation on Monday.
"The government will not tolerate such kinds of inhumane behavior. We have ordered an inquiry into the incident. The committee was asked to submit the report in 24 hours," she said.
