• Mentally disabled Otera Bibi, 42, wandered to a nearby village in West Bengal
  • Locals thought she was ‘stealing children,’ tied her to a tractor and beat her
  • Otera tried to protest her innocence but onlookers could not understand her
  • Police rushed Otera to Jangipur hospital but she died of her injuries
  • Police detained villagers for questioning but nobody has yet been charged 

WARNING: Graphic content

HORRIFIC footage shows the moment a mentally disabled woman was beaten to death by a mob after she was wrongly accused of being a child kidnapper.

Otera Bibi, 42, was tied to a tractor, stripped and had her head shaved by the furious villagers after she was suspected of trying to snatch a 10-year-old girl.

A mob pounced on the mentally ill woman at Sekendra village in West Bengal, India, and attacked her for three hours with sticks and stones before she died of her injuries.

Otera had been living with her parents but wandered from her home to a nearby village last Tuesday.

Villagers spotted her walking into the home of local Dilip Ghosh with something in her hand.

Local reports claim that villagers feared Otera was holding a chloroform-soaked rag so she could abduct Ghosh’s young daughter.

A mob then rushed into the house and started beating her “mercilessly”.

“Some youngsters ripped off the woman’s clothes and they shaved off her hair,” one resident told the Hindustan Times.

“Then they tied her to a tractor and beat her for three hours.

Otera is understood to have tried to protest her innocence but onlookers could not understand what she was saying.

Police arrived later in the afternoon and rushed Otera to Jangipur sub-divisional hospital but she died of her injuries after the attack in the Murshidabad district.

Locals ripped off her clothes and shaved her head as they 'beat her mercilessly'', according to witnesses in the Mithipur-Panagarh village

Mentally disabled Otera Bibi, 42, had been living with her parents but wandered from her home to a nearby village in West Bengal, India, last Tuesday

Murshidabad Superintendent of Police Mukesh said: ‘A mob beat up the woman after a rumour spread that she was trying to lift children from the village.

‘We have started investigating the murder case. We are trying to identify the people involved in the lynching as well as those who spread the rumour.’

Police detained several villagers for questioning but so far nobody has been charged over the death.

Otera stopped in a villager's hut - sparking fears that she was trying to snatch his ten-year-old daughter. Locals tied her to a tractor and attacked her for three hours with sticks and stones

Otera stopped in a villager’s hut – sparking fears that she was trying to snatch his ten-year-old daughter. Locals tied her to a tractor and attacked her for three hours with sticks and stones

They believed Otera was a child kidnapper after a similar incident last month in which a child vanished from the neighbourhood.

But Otera’s husband said his wife was ‘mentally challenged’ while her family said they were not concerned at first when she went missing because she would often wander away from home for a day or two.

Locals believed Otera was a child kidnapper after a child vanished from the neighbourhood last month. She tried to protest her innocence but onlookers could not understand her

Locals believed Otera was a child kidnapper after a child vanished from the neighbourhood last month. She tried to protest her innocence but onlookers could not understand her

The Murshidabad Superintendent said: “A mob beat up the woman after a rumour spread that she was trying to lift children from the village.

“We have started investigating the murder case. We are trying to identify the people involved in the lynching as well as those who spread the rumour.

“We will not spare the people who spread these rumours. We will also take action against the villagers who lynched Otera Bibi if her family lodges a complaint.”

Police have dismissed the villagers’ claims that Otera was a child abductor.

Otera’s husband said his wife was ‘’mentally challenged’’ and had been undergoing psychiatric treatment for more than a year.

Source: Daily Mail