Five more beaten to death in India lynchings

A mob in India's Maharashtra state lynched five men they suspected of being child kidnappers.

The senior management of the WhatsApp has been informed of the incidents and ruckus created by such circulated messages and have been instructed to take remedial measures to immediately contain the proliferation of the fake messages, it added.

Whatsapp said that the police in Hyderabad have created a WhatsApp account that anyone can message with rumors that concern them, which is a best practice that the company plans to emulate elsewhere.

In yet another incident of mob violence, five people were lynched to death by villagers in Dhule district on Sunday, on suspicion of being child lifters. Two more similar incidents came to light from the state within two weeks. According to the police, WhatsApp rumours of a gang of child kidnappers had been doing the rounds in the village.

The police have imposed a curfew in the village as the situation remains tense and additional police forces have also been deployed.

CCTV footage of chartered plane crash
DGCA officials said the aircraft would have to be written off, as it was now damaged beyond fix . Aviation experts said a visibility of minimum 5,000 metres (5km) is needed for such flights.

So far this year, false messages about child abductors on WhatsApp have helped to trigger mass beatings of more than a dozen people in India - at least three of whom have died. The Rainpada village where the killings took place, was mostly deserted today as the police hunted for those who participated in the mob attack.

The attacks have also spanned the sub-continent, from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where a 55-year-old woman was killed in early May after giving candies to children, to northeastern Assam, where two men were killed after stopping to ask for directions in June, to western Gujarat, where a 45-year-old female beggar was killed last week.

India told Facebook-owned WhatsApp to take "immediate action" after a spate of horrific lynchings sparked by false rumours being shared on the hugely popular smartphone messaging service.

A July 3rd statement from the nation's Ministry of Electronics & IT says "Instances of lynching of innocent people have been noticed recently because of large number of irresponsible and explosive messages filled with rumours and provocation are being circulated on WhatsApp". In eastern Tripura, internet and SMS services were suspended last week after a "rumor buster" hired by the local government to educate local villagers was killed by a mob, Agence France-Presse reported.