Mob Lynching in Bihar: Nitish Kumar indulging in word play, says NAPM

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.

Xi Jinping’s visit to USA: Recognition that China can't be contained?

By Vijay Prashad President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to the United States must be understood as more than an encounter between two heads of state, but it must be seen as an encounter between two possible futures. In one future, the United States imposes a spiral of confrontation against China. Trade disputes harden into economic warfare, then economic warfare intensifies into technological blockades, technological blockades produce military encirclement, and finally military encirclement creates incidents, and incidents the danger of becoming an unimaginable war.

Swaminarayan, untouchability and the 'we are not Hindu' argument

By Rajiv Shah Following my blog on why the Eiffel Tower authorities should take all the blame for giving in to the Swaminarayan sadhus ’ bizarre demand to “invisibilise” women, including its female staff, during their visit to the internationally renowned Paris tourist centre on September 5, an interesting comment by one of the top academics drew my attention to something I vaguely knew about one of India’s most powerful and richest religious sects.

From margins to microphones: The rise of Dalit hip-hop in India

By Tersina Maria Toppo* A protest does not always arrive as a slogan shouted from a street corner. Sometimes, it arrives on a beat. A microphone replaces the megaphone, a music video becomes a public square, and the smartphone becomes the space where a history once pushed to the margins is narrated, debated, and shared.

Counterview

Search This Blog