“Law may not be able to make a man love him but it can keep the man from lynching him.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
There is an urgent need to bring in a special law to deal with the menace of mob lynching. The special law dealing with the atrocities against the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes — the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 — may not have ended caste discrimination, but it has acted as a great deterrent.
After all, mob lynching is no ordinary crime. In April, 2024, The Hindu had reported that the Supreme Court heard a petitioner’s contention that mob lynching incidents are recorded by the police in certain states as brawls or accidents. In another instance, the apex court had used strong language while asking the Union Government to curb mob lynching. It had observed, “Citizens cannot take the law into their hands or become law unto themselves,” and added that “horrendous acts of mobocracy” cannot become the new norm.
Sources in the Union Home Ministry say that as per the Indian constitutional scheme, ‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects. State Governments are, therefore, responsible for controlling crime, maintaining law and order, and protecting the life and property of the citizens. They are empowered to enact and enforce laws to curb crime in their jurisdiction.
Many legal experts and community leaders, however, insist that these measures would not suffice. They feel mob lynching is of a separate genre and needs special attention and treatment. Mob lynching can not be aptly handled under section 323, 324, 326, 307 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
Section 323 of the IPC deals with punishment for voluntarily causing hurt while section 324 deals with those wilfully causing hurt by dangerous weapons. Section 326 entails causing grievous hurt, section 307 and section 302 deal with attempt to murder and punishment for murder, respectively. As per the Dainik Bhaskar investigation, in mob lynching, fixing the onus of crime on individuals proves far more tricky. There are instances where an unruly mob has tried to implicate police, accusing them of custodial death when a grievously injured victim was handed over to the police and died upon reaching the hospital.
In some states, there have been instances of a section of the political class being ‘considerate’ towards lumpen vigilantes. In the absence of a strong political will, there is a possibility that the new law may not be diligently enforced.
Some argue that more than enacting a law, Union and State governments need to show greater political will to curb mob lynching. In some States, there have been instances of a section of the political class being ‘considerate’ towards lumpen vigilantes. In the absence of a strong political will, there is a possibility that the new law may not be diligently enforced.