Five arrested for lynching of a "North Indian" in Maharashtra

Mumbai, Oct 30 : Five persons were arrested in connection with the murder of a migrant youth, belonging to Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur district, by miscreants on a local train in Maharashtra on Tuesday.

Government Railway Police (GRP) commissioner A K Sharma said, "We questioned many people yesterday and based on information and eyewitness accounts, five persons have been arrested today."

They are likely to be produced in a court later today.

On Wednesday, the GRP, which takes orders from the railway ministry, detained 20 people.

The Maharashtra Government has tried to downplay the lynching of the Uttar Pradesh labourer, saying it wasn't a hate crime against North Indians, amid reports that some of them could be from Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

Dharam Dev Rai, who was beaten to death on a train in Badlapur in Maharashtra, after the miscreants identified him as a "North Indian".

Rai, 25, and his three friends were attacked by eight-ten people when they were on their way to Kurla. One of them claimed that they were attacked by a group of Marathi-speaking youths who abused them for taking up jobs in Mumbai.

The tragic incident comes after a youth from Bihar Rahul Raj was gunned down by the Mumbai Police on Monday after he had allegedly hijacked a bus at Kurla saying he wanted to take revenge against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray.

ANI