Youth lynched for murdering shopkeeper

LUCKNOW - A young man was beaten to death in Uttar Pradesh by a group of villagers when he tried to escape after murdering a shopkeeper, police said Tuesday.

The youth, in his early 20s, was killed late Monday in Jandheri village of Muzaffarnagar district, about 350 km from here. He is yet to be identified.

“The man and his two aides shot dead the shopkeeper. Villagers who heard the shots chased the assailants,” police inspector Shri Ram Katheria said in Muzaffarnagar.

While two assailants escaped, a third was caught and beaten to death with rods and wooden sticks.

This is the fifth lynching incident in Uttar Pradesh since February this year. The other incidents took place in Moradabad (two) and Meerut and Lucknow.