Communal tension erupted in Sundarnagar town in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday (5th November) after a Muslim man tried to kidnap a minor Hindu girl. The victim’s family caught the accused, named Abbas, after spotting him around her house on Wednesday evening. Locals thrashed him and smeared his face with black ink before handing him over to the police.
As per reports, the victim told her family on Wednesday morning that Abbas, a married man with two wives, had been stalking her for several days. He used to follow her on her way to school. She said that on Tuesday (4th November), when she was returning from school, Abbas grabbed her hand and tried to pull her into a car. When she raised an alarm, he left. Therefore, the victim’s family explored the nearby CCTV footage to identify the accused and finally nabbed him near her house.
After the accused was taken to the police station, the victim’s family and locals came face-to-face with the family of the accused outside the police station. A heated argument escalated into a full-fledged confrontation between the two sides. The situation returned to normal after the intervention of the police. DSP Bharat Bhushan said that an FIR has been lodged against the accused under the relevant provisions of the BNS and the POCSO Act. Police have also booked some people for creating a ruckus inside the police station. The police recorded the statements of he victim and her family members.
A counter-complaint was allegedly filed by the family of the accused, alleging that he was thrashed, humiliated and illegally detained by locals before being handed over to the police. “Members of two communities came face to face following an incident of alleged sexual harassment of a minor girl. The accused belongs to the minority community. He alleged that the kin of the girl assaulted him. We registered cross-FIRs. The situation is now under control,” said Sakshi Verma, Superintendent of Police, Mandi. The police are investigating both cases simultaneously.
Abbas reportedly lived abroad for around 10 years. One of his wives is from Jammu and Kashmir and the other one is from Bilaspur.
