By Izunna Okafor, Awka
It was a dramatic scene at Nnewi the automobile hub of Anambra State over the weekend, as a yet-to-be-identified suspected motorcycle thief was bëaten to near de@th after allegedly being apprehended in the act of attempting to steal a lady’s bike from where it was parked in a public space.
The incident, which reportedly happened in a daytime, saw a group of men pound on the suspects to the shock and fear of the bystanders that they might beat him to de@th, given the severity of the be@tings he received.
This was corroborated by a video from the scene of the incident which is currently trending on social media, showing the men h!tting, k!cking, and brütalizing the suspect with both fists, knees, heavy-soled footwears, among other objects and available weapons, while also tossing and hauling him around.
While the be@tings were going on, a bystander was overheard in the background of the video cautioning the people that what they were doing was a jungle justice and advising them to hand over the suspect to the police for investigation and possible prosecution. Some other bystanders were also overheard in the background lamenting and pleading that the suspect be forgiven and freed to go, to avoid the matter degenerating into a mürder case, as he had already collected enough be@tings.
This lingered to the point that the suspect eventually coll@psed on the ground. The att@ckers thereafter left him for a while. However, when they noticed that he was still breathing, they dragged him up again by his cloth and started pounding on him again, until he finally coll@psed the second time and purportedly became unconscious. This time, they abandoned him there on the ground to his fate.
The incident has sparked off a chain of reactions and counter-reactions on social media platforms, attracting concerns and opinions of social media users, some of whom hailed the brütalization as well-deserved of the suspect, while some others criticized it as excessive and a jungle justice.
On the other hand, some social media users, in their reactions, claimed that the suspect was not even given enough be@tings and t0rture as he deserved, while also suggesting that he should have been ‘lighted’ immediately and r0asted alive with any available tire or firewoods, to serve as deterrent to others.
In his reactionary comment, a netizen, Ugochukwu Onunkwo, wrote: “How to handle him first will be stripe all his clothes, be@t him like a thief and remove his one teeth, ikputu ọnụ is involved, Mass be@ting left and right, but don’t k!ll him.”
On her own part, another netizen, Maudlin Obi, wrote “All of you that k!lled him, your picture is on the screen and those that sell things there know all of you.”
Adding a voice, Ebere Ojukwu, expressed shock over the incident, revealing that the suspect was going around like a beggar.
“This guyyy that goes about like a beggar,” she exclaimed, while other netizens also continue to share their thoughts on the incident.
Watch the video below:
