Alarmed at the increasing number of cases of mob brutality in the state, the Bihar government has decided to impose a fine on the entire village if its residents take the law in their own hands while dealing with criminal offenders.

Bihar's Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah told rediff.com on Saturday that the decision to impose a collective fine on the entire village was taken by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at a high-level meeting with top officials

"A collective fine on the village will be imposed to discourage people from taking the law into their own hands while dealing with criminal offenders," Amanullah said.

The decision comes in the wake of the latest case of lynching at Dhelpurwa village in Vaishali on Thursday, where hundreds of villagers mercilessly beat ten suspected thieves to death with sticks and iron rods.

Amanullah said that the entire village will be held responsible for any mob violence and each villager will have to pay a fine if a case like Dhelpurwa lynching was repeated.

Kumar had convened a meeting of top home department officials on Saturday to chalk out a strategy to check violent public outbursts against criminals.

In the meeting, the chief minister expressed his concern over the recent cases of mob violence. Kumar said that occasional incidents of public violence are comprehensible, but such cases had to be stopped if they threatened to become a trend.

Several cases of public fury against criminal offenders have been reported from Bihar in the last one month.

A mob had gouged out the eyes of three young men in Nawada district on Monday for snatching a motorcycle. In another incident, two minor boys were beaten and their heads tonsured partially for stealing detergent powder from a shop in Nawada.

A youth, who had snatched a gold chain from a woman, was badly beaten up by a mob at Nathnagar in Bhagalpur on August 28.