Street Justice

Yesterday I came out into the street behind the apartment development into a new situation. Two men were hitting another man and shoving him up against a pile of
cement blocks near the building construction, where he seemed to be cowering and whimpering. I tried to size up the situation, thinking that perhaps it was a short lived outburst, but when it went on for several seconds, I yelled out, "What are you doing to him?!"

They responded that he had snatched someone's cell phone, and continued to buffet him and threaten to call the police. He seemed to be begging them not to. What to do?

They seemed to have recovered the lady's purse and cell phone. If they had been kicking him, or punching him hard or in his face, I would have felt the need to try to end it. On the other hand, I don't know what the India justice system is like, and had a feeling that if he was a poor man in need of something to eat, he might fare much worse if he was arrested and imprisoned.

Quite a crowd had assembled, so I figured there were too many witnesses for them to really seriously injure the man. It seemed that these were a couple of guys coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. My guess was that he would soon be let go to run for his life, with some bruises to teach him a lesson.

I decided to stay out of it and let street justice run its course. God help me if I was wrong.