Tabrez Ansari lynching case: Why the outcome must concern us all – By Harsh Mander
Freedom is indivisible. “The chains on any one of my people,” Nelson Mandela reminded us, “were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.” There are many things that trouble me about India today. One is our ever-mounting tolerance of the open and profound injustice done to “other people”.…
India’s criminal justice system has always been biased against disadvantaged castes, women and Muslims. Few people who organised and participated in caste and communal massacres and rapes have ever been punished. But in recent years, this official bias has become more open, brazen and unapologetic. A Muslim charged with terror crimes can spend 14, even 23, years in jail, before he steps out, innocent. A Hindu charged with terror is likely to soon walk free, and might even be elected to Parliament. Criminal cases after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots collapse wholesale with barely a whimper of protest.
This open bias of the criminal justice system is most visible in mob lynching. Lynch mobs, who in most cases record their own crimes triumphantly on mobile phone cameras, roam as heroes. The victim, even after he dies, is tainted as a criminal. The most recent example of this is the decision of the Jharkhand police to write down the crime of the lynch mob that attacked Tabrez Ansari from murder to culpable homicide.…
SEE ALSO:
- Lynching, not murder: On Tabrez Ansari killing – Editorial (Sep 12, 2019, The Hindu)
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/lynching-not-murder/article29394683.ece - Lynching becomes heart attack, victim pays not rapist & rope turns snake in police-neta raj – By Shekhar Gupta (Sep 14, 2019, The Print)
https://theprint.in/national-interest/ips-has-conveniently-morphed-into-the-indian-political-service/291510/ - Did Tabrez Ansari’s Post-Mortem Justify the Dropped Murder Charge? – By Aishwarya S Iyer (Sep 12, 2019, The Quint)
https://www.thequint.com/news/india/tabrez-ansari-lynching-why-did-police-drop-murder-charge - Rakbar Khan Lynching Case: What the Investigations Have Revealed – By Shruti Jain (Sep 10, 2019, The Wire)
https://thewire.in/rights/rakbar-khan-lynching-gau-raksha-rajasthan
