By A Representative
The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) has said that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar instead of taking a recent incident of mob lynching head on is indulging in "idle word play" at time his administration "is not serious about citizens' safety or in promoting a secular environment.
Commenting on the killing of three persons in Saran distict, the CM had said thar it is "not a case of mob lynching but of murder arising out of local situation." In the mob lynching incident, Raju Nat, Bides Nat and Naushad Quereshi of Paigambarpur village were killed on July 19, 2019.
"It has been alleged that the deceased were cattle thieves. The police have stated that villagers caught them while they were stealing cattle and beat them up using sticks and iron rods leading to their death. Three men have been arrested in this case so far", NAPM, a network of tens of grassroots organizations in India, said.
This is the third incident of mob lynching in Bihar in the last one year. In October 2018 Zainul Ansari was burnt to death by a mob in Sitamarhi, and in December 2018 Mohammad Kabul was beaten to death by crowd in Araria district.
A rising trend in India ever since the Modi government came to power in 2014, as many as 19 people losing their lives in Jharkhand alone due to mob lynching. Marginalised communities of Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis are mostly the victims of such hate crimes, said NAPM.
"We are witnessing, almost on a daily basis, that people are being forced to chant Jai Shree Ram and are being beaten up by a crowd if they disagree. Most recently, on July 20, Imran Ismail Patel, a hotel employee in Aurangabad, Maharashtra was beaten up and forced to chant Jai Shree Ram", said NAPM.
In a statement, NAPM has demanded that district magistrates should be held accountable for such incidents, there should be proper and fast investigation and speedy trial by special courts to ensure justice is done, existing laws should be implemented in letter and spirit to provide a safe atmosphere, and compensation should be given immediately to the victim’s family.
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