Some two years ago, a mob lynched 10 men of the Kueri sub-group of the Nat tribe at Rajapakar village in the state's Vaishali district. The incident had hit national headlines.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had ordered a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probe into the incident, which found that the victims were not thieves and the lynching was not a sequel to any crime or theft case.

According to the report, the men were returning from a feast and got involved in a heated exchange with an auto-rickshaw driver over the fare near Dhelpurwa. The spat attracted a mob, which beat up the men mercilessly.

In rural areas of Bihar, street 'justice' is becoming increasingly common. Over 50 cases of lynching have been reported from the state over the last two-and-half months this year.