SASLess, me put words in your mouth? Never.
Seriously though, you may be surprised to know that MOB is actually a semi-legal term in that part of the world. I would venture to suggest that Mob is a function of population numbers whereas in less populous areas Crowd suffices.
'Mob' would appear to be a very large number of people where there is both few CCTV cameras and insufficient resources to monitor those that exist.
When I was in India there were two instances. One where we had to use a different road, a 'mob' had closed the road after a bus ran over a child. What they really wanted was a large sum in compensation.
The other was reported where someone had been 'hacked to death by the mob.' This was also code for saying that no assailants would be identified as it was done by an amorphous body.