By Albert Thyrniang
On 5 March, the country witnessed one of the most horrific incidents, perhaps never seen before. Thousands of people dragged an accused rapist out of jail in Dimapur, Nagaland, stripped and paraded him naked, tied him to a motor cycle, dragged him through streets for several kilometres and lynched him cruelly, inhumanely, brutally and barbarically.
The deceased, 35-year-old Syed Farid Khan, had allegedly raped a Naga college student on 23 and 24 February who subsequently filed an FIR with the police. The man was arrested and following judicial order, he was lodged in the Central jail in the city. This did not deter the enraged vigilante groups. Led by a student body, the mob stormed the central jail and murdered the man in full public view.
As the murder unfolded young men and women, scornfully, mockingly snapped pictures and recorded videos of the naked, blood-drenched and probably lifeless human being. From the footage beamed by regional, national and international television channels, it was clear that none in the mob was remorseful but everyone seemed gleeful at their success in taking the law in their own hands and delivering quick street justice to the man they were dead sure was a rapist.
This has to be one of the most cruel incidents of mob lynching in history. The gruesome Dimapur incident is comparable to a practice that existed in South Africa in the apartheid era. Alleged rapists were made to wear a tyre around their necks. The tyre was then was doused with petrol and set alight.
Another comparable incident was reported by The Guardian. The paper’s story narrated that on 13 August 2004, one Akku Yadav was lynched by a mob of around 200 women in Nagpur. Yadav had allegedly raped women with impunity for more than a decade. The mob threw chilli powder on his face even as stones were hurled at him. He was then hacked as many as 70 times. What made it worse was that the murder took place in the premises of the Nagpur district court.
As the Dimapur lynching became headline story, the media, which perhaps, based their sources from the involved groups and police from ground zero, pointed out that Khan was an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant who was a second hand automobile dealer. However, it later emerged that the accused was an Indian from Kosla village under Badarpur Police Station in Karimganj district of South Assam who had had settled in the Nagaland commercial centre with a Naga lady. His business partner and brother, Jamal Uddin Khan, who fled the scene after his brother’s shocking murder, even revealed that his family has multiple members in the army. Their own father served in the force. Even if Khan was illegal Bangladeshi immigrant, we ought to know that the lynching was in no way justified and justifiable. An illegal immigrant too is a human being.
There is a point of view prevalent in the social media and otherwise, that the public is forced to take such drastic steps as the police often don’t take action against accused or that the law take a long time to bring justice for victims. This is an erroneous and dangerous argument. An accused could turn out to be innocent. If every accused is killed there will be many innocents who will be executed wrongly. There are examples where even after lengthy court trials accused were found innocent after execution. Secondly, if everyone takes law into his or her hands there will be total lawlessness, anarchy and mayhem. We will be back in the dark ages of hundreds of years ago.
The sibling of the victim of violence also claimed that that medical reports showed that the woman was not raped. The college student who filed the rape complaint against his brother was the cousin of his brother’s wife. At the cost of being communal, it is be stated here that the lynched man was a soft target as he belonged to the minority community. To say otherwise would be defending the indefensible. Though there had been incidents of lynching alleged rapists in Nagaland (where rape is believed to be alien), it would be inconceivable that a local could be cruelly treated in such a manner by a 10,000 strong mob.
No doubt there are sensitive issues in Nagaland like influx, illegal immigrants, territorial integrity of the state, crimes against women, lack of employment opportunities for the youth and so on. From whatever angle you look at it, the communal dimension comes through. The subsequent action of destruction of shops and property of the non-Nagas proves the point. Agreed that the aforementioned issues are real and need to be tackled but nothing can justify the infamous planned assassination.
What is worrisome was that among the participants in the heinous crime were school and college students, including girls, in uniform. Narrating the turn of events, the suspended Dimapur SP Meren Jamir said police officials were unable to use maximum force because “hundreds of girls in school and college uniforms were in the front”. They were leading the mob into the jail premises. Force would have resulted in a bloodbath. Those students must have been collected from different schools and colleges by student organisations and pressure groups. They were given practical lesson on instant justice and taking law into one’s own hands. Probably led astray or were instigated but hope they are counselled to realise that what they did was wrong.
Closer home, most recently in the first week of January, in a remote village of Mrigre near Rongram, not far from Tura, five members of two families were killed by the same villagers on suspicion of practising witch-craft and involvement with underground groups and their remains secretly buried. Their bodies were exhumed on 25th of February. This reminds us of the hacking of three persons to death at Smit village, Shillong on 16th August, 2013 for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
The multiple murders in Garo Hills met with little condemnation. Shockingly NGOs and the police were allegedly accomplices as they did not do enough to prevent the crime. Now the outlawed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) has taken up the matter. The insensitive banned militant group called for bandh through out Garo Hills on 9th March in spite of the fact that the date coincided with HSSLC and SSLC examinations. It is most ironical that the GNLA which horrifically and cold bloodedly murdered 35 year old woman, Josbina Sangma, a mother of four in Chokpot 3rd June last year should have the temerity to talk about crime of lynching. Strangely no one protested against the bandh call too!
In a civilised society public execution of accused criminals is unacceptable. The legal process takes time. Even fast track courts take time and they do not necessarily convict the accused. Recently the accused rapist of a minor girl in Jaintia Hills was acquitted by a fast track court. Probably under the craze for fastness, investigation was incomplete or shoddy. Obviously, the court found no unflinching evidences otherwise it would not have acquitted the accused. Though in need of urgent reforms, the judicial process is best respected.