Three employees of a public opinion polling company have been rescued from a mob in southern Mexico that beat them after apparently mistaking them for thieves.
Inhabitants of the town of Centla, in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, attacked five employees of the Simo Consulting firm, including two women and three men. Three of the poll workers, including one woman, were held for hours and beaten, while two others were protected by a local official.
The company said in a statement that the Monday night attack left three of its employees injured, one seriously. The mob apparently mistook them for thieves. The company denied they were involved in any illegal acts.
“We appreciate the intervention of the federal, state authorities, the army and the navy, which allowed the release of the five pollsters held,” Simo Consulting said in a Facebook post.
“We regret and condemn the terrible acts of violence committed against our pollsters. We reiterate that none of them made criminal acts of any kind in the municipality.
“Our team was in Centla, Tabasco, only to comply with their work, participating in a study to measure the tendencies of public opinion of the population.”
The pollsters were freed on Tuesday morning in a joint operation by federal police, marines and soldiers.
"People cannot take the law into their own hands," said the state interior secretary Gustavo Rosario. "The state government condemns these acts."
Mexico has been grappling with an epidemic of violence, often involving drug gangs retaliating against each other or police and security forces, but innocent civilians also fall victim to mistaken vigilantism after false reports of crime.
In October 2015 a mob killed and burned the bodies of two pollsters conducting a survey about tortilla consumption in a small town south-east of Mexico City.
The mob had accused the men of molesting a local girl, but the girl later said she had never seen the two before.
Guardian Service