Nine arrested after three burnt alive in communal violence

Burnt wreckage of vehicles, set on fire by a rioting mob, is seen in front of a charred house at Sareya village in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar yesterday.

Agencies/PatnaPolice have arrested nine people after a mob torched a house and burnt to death three men thought to be Muslims in an outbreak of communal violence in Bihar, an official said yesterday. Police in riot gear were patrolling a village where Sunday’s hours-long rampage and attack occurred. The attack was triggered by the discovery of the body of a teenage Hindu boy, allegedly murdered by family members of a Muslim girl who objected to the pair’s suspected relationship. “We have identified the attackers and nine accused have been arrested,” said Paras Nath, inspector general of police in Muzaffarpur district. “The hunt is on for others. Three persons were burnt alive,” Nath said.  “One accused in the murder of the teenage boy has also been arrested,” he added. The body of 19-year-old Bhartendu Kumar was discovered on Saturday in his native village of Saraiya, 102km from the state capital Patna, after he disappeared days earlier. A mob armed with sticks and other sharp weapons attacked the house of one of the people suspected by Kumar’s family of kidnapping and murdering him, police said. Rioters set his house on fire, killing three residents, thought to belong to the Muslim community and injuring two others. Police said 10 adjoining houses were also gutted and 15 vehicles damaged in the violence, which lasted for four hours on Sunday morning. “The situation is tense but under control,” Muzaffarpur district official Anupam Kumar said. More than 60 people were killed in riots between Hindus and Muslims in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in 2013. Couples from different religions in India are often targeted by their families and community members for supposedly bringing “dishonour,” sometimes resulting in confrontations and even deadly violence and full-scale riots.  Critics say Hindu hardline groups have become more emboldened since the Bharatiya Janata Party stormed to power at elections in May.