A group of armed men in India stripped a Muslim man, tied him to a pole and lashed him for over an hour in a crowded marketplace for allegedly making conversation with a Hindu woman.
Both, the Muslim man and Hindu woman lived in a communally polarised coastal town of Mangalore where such attacks have been quite common in the past.
After videos of the lashing went viral on news channels, police arrived at the scene and arrested 14 out of around 30 suspected Bajrand Dal Party activists who were reportedly taking turns to flog him for indulging in a conversation with a Hindu.
The young man however, while lodging a complaint, claimed that the woman is a salesgirl at a local accessories store in Mangalore, where he is the manager.
“She had asked me for a loan of Rs 2,000 and we were walking to an ATM when the armed man came with knives and started attacking us,” the manager said.
Though the woman managed to escape, she too was slapped by the men when she came to her colleague’s defence.
