Lucknow, Oct 5 (PTI) What began as a rumour in western Uttar Pradesh a few months ago -- of thieves using drones to scout rooftops before robberies -- has now drifted eastwards, gripping one district after another in waves of panic and suspicion.

From Rae Bareli to Kanpur and from Etawah to Ballia, stories of "drone chor" have transformed into a kind of rural folklore, whispered at tea stalls and shouted in village lanes long after dusk.

The fear, though said to be born of fiction by the police, has begun to turn deadly. In Rae Bareli, police arrested five men on Saturday for allegedly lynching Hariom, a 38-year-old man from Fatehpur, after mistaking him for a drone thief.

The police said Hariom, reportedly mentally unstable, was walking to his in-laws' home in Dandepur Jamunapur when a

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