A pan-Northeast legal group has renewed its demand for enacting law to deal specifically with cases of mob lynching.
The Assam-based North East Legal Organization (NELO) refreshed its year-old demand following the mob assault on a doctor at a COVID-19 care centre in central Assam’s Hojai district on June 1.
The police arrested 24 people, including a woman, for grievously injuring Dr. Seuj Kumar Senapati, holding him responsible for the death of a COVID-19 positive person who, healthcare officials said, died by the time he reached the centre.
In a letter to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday, NELO president Susmit Nripanka Krishnatraya and secretary general Debajit Barman said a specific law could go a long way in checking mob lynching and mob attacks.
“Cases of mob lynching generally come under the purview of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, but even the IPC doesn’t specifically deal with mob lynching as an offence. A specific and strict penal statute on mob lynching shall definitely help the State in the intervention and prevention of such instances,” they said in the letter.
Earlier letter
In June 2020, the NELO wrote a similar letter to former Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal after mobs thrashed Sanatan Deka to death at Monahkuchi village near Guwahati on May 23 and 23-year-old Debasish Gogoi in Gabharu Parbat Tea Estate in eastern Assam’s Jorhat district.
They were victims of road rage following minor accidents allegedly caused by them.
“Cases of mob lynching are increasing, happening time and again – be it the killing of 16-year-old Jhankar Saikia [in Karbi Anglong district’s Diphu, 2013] over a fare of ₹ 10 or the assault on Dr. Senapati. The sooner we have a specific law to deal with this menace, the better,” Mr. Barman told The Hindu .
Witchcraft
Lynching associated with witchcraft has been an age-old issue in the State. Rumours spread via social media became a cause of concern less than a decade ago.
The government had taken note of the severity of the issue when Goa-based sound engineer Nilotpal Das and his businessman friend, Abhijeet Nath, were lynched by villagers in central Assam’s Karbi Anglong district in Many 2018. The villagers had taken them to be child-lifters.
In August 31, a mob had killed Deben Dutta, a senior medical officer of Teok Tea Estate after the death of a youth in the hospital within the plantation.
