Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has rubbished the allegation of rising lynching incidents in India under the BJP regime, feels that there is no need for a special law to tackle the crime. He, instead, stressed on creating awareness to address the issue. Independent surveys have found that there has been an increase in the occurrences of the hate crimes. In 2018, the Supreme Court had urged Parliament to enact a law to deal with lynchings. This August, despite stiff opposition from the BJP, the Rajasthan Assembly has passed an anti-lynching Bill that has provisions of life imprisonment to the convicts.
Lynching, a political creation of Cong: Lekhasri
Most of the lynching incidents are local issues, stemming from long time conflicts. It has nothing to do with religion as the Congress is trying to portray it. We completely agree with what Home Minister Amit Shah has said.
India is a very tolerant country that celebrates its religious diversity. It is characteristic feature of Hindutva to let others be. Lynching is a political creation of the Congress. It is a new narrative that they want to register in the psyche of the people.
The BJP government is committed to the diversity of the nation and fighting corruption. After losing power, the Congress has nowhere to go. So, it is diverting the attention towards stray cases of lynching and communal violence.
But what have they proved so far? We only believe in the agenda of development and that is
what we are working towards. In a country as vast as India, incidents happen.
The stray media reports of the lynching cases have been found to be factually incorrect. On the contrary, nobody was ever found to be forced to say ‘Jay Shree Ram’, as the reports suggest.
If you check the facts, you will find that the narrative set around lynching cases is totally fake.
It is to show that there is a Hindu agenda to drive away Muslims from the country; but this is not true.
Lekhasri Samantsinghar, BJP leader
BJP doesn’t value human lives: Nayak
It is the government’s duty to protect the life and property of the people. But both the Prime Minister and the Home minister are not even ready to admit or recognise the serious problem of lynchings. This shows that they don’t respect or value human lives.
There has undoubtedly been an increase in lynching incidents across the country after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power. It is also unfortunate to see the kind of reception and welcome the lynching accused are offered by the BJP members and their ilk when the former are out on parole. That creates an impression that the government is okay with the lynching or similar hate crimes happening in the country. The Home minister should be more concerned about human lives.
Shah is a minister of the Union of India, not BJP’s home minister or the minister of an ultra right Hindu outfit, for that matter. So, the Home minister saying this is very unfortunate and disastrous. In fact, statements like these encourage, promote and sponsor such hate crimes.
There should be stringent provision in the law to stop lynchings and to prosecute the criminals. Because, now the mob that is taking the law into their hands are aware that nothing can stop them from committing such heinous crimes.
Satya Prakash Nayak, Congress leader
