Scores of residents beat to death the son of a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm Friday in Zagazig city in Egypt’s Nile Delta Sharqiya governorate, which has seen a significant number of mob killings recently.
Security sources told Ahram Online that hundreds of El-Qataweya village residents ransacked the house of Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) leader, Rabie Lasheen, in the early hours of Friday, setting his furniture and three cars on fire apart from killing his son. Revenge was their motive.
Lasheen’s son, Youssef, was accused of shooting a 28-year-old man merely for insulting his father in a Facebook post for his affiliation with the FJP. An auto rickshaw (tok tok) driver in his 40s was accidentally gunned down too.
The revengeful mob, including members of both men’s families, dragged Lasheen’s son to the street and used bladed weapons while assaulting him, according to Al-Ahram’s daily correspondent. The assistants then left him for dead in the street.
Youssef was taken to the hospital, where he succumbed to the fatal injuries.
The police forces were completely absent from the scene until dawn on Friday, where only two policemen were dispatched to Lasheen’s house after the end of the melee, according to Al-Ahram’s correspondent.
Mob killings have been recurrent in villages and rural areas across Egypt, thanks to a security vacuum seen after Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
The Sharqiya governorate is considered to be the most plagued with brutal unofficial executions.
Ahram
