Police have no evidence linking two suspects to a mob that assaulted a woman and set her house alight because she was wearing pants, the Umlazi magistrates' court heard yesterday.

Police have no evidence linking two suspects to a mob that assaulted a woman and set her house alight because she was wearing pants, the Umlazi magistrates' court heard yesterday.

Captain Clement Ngcobo, who was testifying during a bail application for Thulani Cele and Wiseman Mzotho, told the court he had no evidence relating to malicious damage to property.

The two men appeared in the court after a second woman, Nomzumo Ngcobo, filed charges of intimidation and claimed that her home had been burnt down by the same mob that attacked another Umlazi woman, Zandile Mpanza.

The two men were this week released on R500 bail each for assault, indecent assault and malicious damage to property in the case involving Mpanza.

They were charged after Mpanza was allegedly assaulted on July 22, stripped naked and paraded through the township's streets for wearing pants. The young woman's house was also set on fire by her attackers.

The charge of arson was withdrawn and replaced with one of malicious damage to property.

"Do you have evidence to support that he was a leader of the mob?" Cele's attorney Abdul Karrim asked.

Ngcobo said Mzotho had been identified as part of the mob, but he had been unable to get statements from residents of the area's T-section. - Sapa