MOB LYNCHING – SOCIAL ISSUE

MOB LYNCHING – SOCIAL ISSUE

News: Six arrested for lynching man transporting cattle in Nashik

What is in the news?

●       Recently, A young man was allegedly lynched by six member mob, alleging that he was transporting cattle illegally in Nashik, Maharashtra.

What is lynching?

●       Mob lynching is a form of violence in which a mob, under the pretext of administering justice without trial, executes a presumed offender, often after inflicting torture.

●       It is an illegally authorized way of punishing somebody by an informal group.

Causes of Mob Lynching:

1. Biases and discrimination:

●       Mob lynching is a hate crime that is rising due to the biases or prejudices among various castes, classes of people, and religions.

2. Lack of Speedy Justice:

●       Inefficient working of justice rendering authorities is the primary reason why people take law into their own hands and have no fear of the consequences.

3. Political Patronage:

●       In competitive electoral politics, the culture of political mobilization based on social fault lines for polarization of the electorate into vote banks and use of violence for garnering support and intimidating opponents, has gained strength.

●       Few elected representatives also sometimes come out in open defense of the attackers.

4. Administrative failure:

●       The failure of the state in protecting Minorities from mob, lack of proper mechanism in place. People are losing their faith in law and order machinery therefore they are taking laws in their hand.

5. Increasing intolerance attitude:

●       In recent times intolerance has increased especially against marginalized people.

●       For example, intolerance has increased against Muslims for cow slaughter and mob lynching case has increased on any news of beef eating lead to mob lynching of the Muslims.

6. Non statutory support to curb mob lynching:

●       There is no comprehensive law on mob lynching in India. This allows the culprit to go free unpunished.

7. Rise in social media usage:

●       Rise in penetration of social media and its usage to spread rumors and hatred has exaggerated such incidents.

Measures taken to address this menace:

1. Supreme Court measures:

●       In July 2017, the Supreme Court in the case of Tahseen s. Poonawala v. UOI had laid down several preventive, remedial and punitive measures to deal with lynching and mob violence.

●       The Supreme Court in this case aptly referred to mob lynching as a ‘horrendous act of mobocracy.

2. Creation of Nodal Officers:

●       Central government has asked states to appoint a nodal officer in each district to prevent the incidents of mob violence and lynching.

●       As per advisory from the Home Ministry, the nodal officer should be a superintendent of police-level officers.

3. Creation of Two High Level Committees:

●       Two high-level committees were constituted by the Central government to suggest ways and legal framework to effectively deal with incidents of mob violence and lynching.

4. State level anti lynching laws:

●       Some states, such as Rajasthan, Manipur, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh, have enacted or proposed anti-lynching laws that define mob lynching as a specific offence and prescribe harsh penalties for it.

5. Victim Compensation Schemes:

●       Directions were also issued to set up Victim compensation schemes for relief and rehabilitation of victims.

WAY FORWARD:

1. Establishment of Fast track courts:

●       The lynching cases should be tried by fast-track courts with day-to-day hearings. It is important to punish the culprit with stringent punishment and conclusion of the cases within 6 months.

2. People sensitization:

●       Indian community should be sensitized towards the rights of other citizens and danger of mob crimes for social cohesion. Awareness campaigns are needed to sensitize people about the plight of others.

3. National level uniform law:

●       A national law is required in response to the spate of lynching incidents happening in the country. The proposed law should define the terms lynching, mob and victim.

●       It should contain provisions like non bailable offense, long and vigorous jail sentence.

4. Guna committee recommendations:

●       Both central and state governments should take efforts to implement the recommendations of the Guna committee on mob lynching.

5. Community police:

●       Government can tie up with all the communities to create a community police to prevent the mob lynching.