It has to be said right at the outset that mob lynching cannot be justified on any pretext and under any circumstances come what may! There has to be zero tolerance for it but right now we see that the perpetrators of the crime are either escaping with just no punishment or are being punished on a very lenient basis thus making a complete mockery of our country on the world stage! It merits no reiteration that this must be set right now.
What message are we sending to the world if we don’t ensure that mob lynchers are promptly punished with most appropriately death penalty or at the least with life imprisonment for at least 25 years in jail without any parole or remission of any kind whatsoever? How can mob lynching be justified by anyone under any circumstances? Are we living in Talibani India? Certainly not.
Every year we get to hear many incidents of mob lynching but when do we hear that mob lynchers have been mob hanged or mob jailed for life! Centre must now wake up and act on this immediately. I rate mob lynching no less than terrorism rather even worse than terrorism because without being trained ever by the intelligence agency or army of any foreign country such brutal crimes are committed most heinously.
There is no reason that why it must not be crushed with an iron hand and those involved in it be made to pay for it by paying fine of many lakhs and also death penalty or life term! We all know how even a police officer Mohammad Ayyub Pandit was not spared in Kashmir and his body was broken after mob beat him badly, broke all his bones and set him ablaze! Same is the case in many other similar cases! We saw how brutally Tabrez Ansari was mob lynched in June yet the Jharkhand police has sought to charge the 11 men with culpable homicide that does not amount to murder! Should all those involved in such heinous acts not be hanged promptly? Yet we see that not even murder charges are slapped against such mob lynchers.
Needless to say, we all know fully well that even Supreme Court in Tehseen S Poonawalla Vs Union of India & Ors in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 754 of 2016 delivered on July 17, 2018 has most unequivocally directed the Centre and States to take preventive, punitive and remedial measures to stop lynching incidents in the future and issued detailed guidelines pertaining to the same. The Apex Court Bench has minced just no words to hold unequivocally that the State has to act positively and responsibly to safeguard and secure the constitutional promises to its citizens. Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty to all the citizens of our nation and no mob can be allowed under any circumstances to hold it to ransom.
It has been more than a year and two months that the top court had urged the Parliament in this extremely landmark and laudable judgment to enact a separate law to punish offenders participating in lynching of persons yet no action taken till now! India has faced major international embarrassment because of this and will continue to face so thus giving a bad name to our nation if such incidents are not controlled on a war footing immediately! It brooks no more delay now! Centre must abide entirely by what the Apex Court has held so categorically, clearly and convincingly.
Sanjeev Sirohi {Advocate}
