n yet another incident of mob lynching, a man in Agra who allegedly harassed girls after getting drunk was brutally beaten by some people. He succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead when brought to the hospital. According to a CNN IBN report, the man was "beaten mercilessly. He was dragged and hit with sticks. Nobody helped him, no one stopped the mob." With the very recent Dimapur lynching incident, the so called mob justice trend seems to be dangerously catching on. Syed Arif Khan was accused of rape, dragged out of Dimapur Central Jail, stripped and beaten to death in Dimapur district of Nagaland on March 5. It emerged later that Khan, brutally murdered by a sizeable crowd, had not committed rape.

The state government, citing feedback from the accused Syed Arif Khan’s interrogation, later informed the Union Home Ministry in a report that "Khan did not rape the woman", according to The Indian Express.

The report, while narrating the sequence of events in the case, points out that Khan told police after his arrest on February 24, a day after the alleged rape, that he had paid Rs 5,000 to the woman after they had 'consensual sex' twice.

The angry mob that started as a march to condemn rape, slowly turned into a 'motivated political' event and disturbing visuals on two blogs, Naga Blog and Naga Spear, were among the factors that contributed to it, states Firstpost.

Vengeful attacks stemming from alleged violent incidents are on the rise not just in India.

Two police officers were shot during a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri on March 12. It has sparked an intense manhunt for suspects and heightened tensions in a city at the center of a debate over racial profiling and policing.

A no-holds-barred expression of anger that results in death of a person who may or may not be guilty, while protesting for a violent act, is ironic and condemnable.

With every such incident, as we let go of empathy, we also ridicule the existence of judiciary. Is a blood-stained route the way ahead for seeking justice?