
Nashik: A 20-year-old youth was beaten to death by a group of nine people in Jalgaon’s Jamner taluka, approximately 300km from Nashik, on Monday evening. Jalgaon SP Maheswar Reddy told TOI, “The reason for the attack on the youth was his relationship with a 17-year-old girl. We have arrested four people in connection with the case and are tracing five others who were involved in the attack.“The youth, who assisted his father with daily farming activities, had travelled to Jamner, 20km from his village, for work on Monday. While seated in a café in Jamner with the girl, a group of people apprehended him and assaulted him, said a Jamner police officer.Police said he was later taken to his village around 4.30pm, where the same group thrashed him again with sticks and iron rods at the bus stand. When his parents learned of the incident and attempted to intervene, they too were beaten up by the mob. The youth sustained serious internal injuries during the attack and was taken to the rural hospital, where he was declared dead.The incident triggered tensions in Jamner on Monday night, with many people taking to the streets to demand the immediate arrest of the accused. A substantial police force was deployed in Jamner to prevent the situation from escalating further.Inspector General (Special) of Nashik Range, Dattatray Karale, also visited Jamner to ensure there was no untoward incident. “The situation is peaceful now,” Karale told reporters in Jamner.Relatives of the deceased youth told reporters that he had been abducted from the café, which is close to a police station. They said if the youth was at fault, he should have been taken to the police station. On the relatives’ request, an in-camera postmortem was conducted.The Jamner police registered an FIR under sections 103 (murder), 140 (kidnapping), 189 (unlawful assembly), 191 (rioting), and 118 (voluntarily causing hurt), among other sections of the BNS.