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Home > EditsLynch lawIt just cannot be condoned by civilised

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IST

It was an anonymous, cramped basti of about 250 homes in quiet Nagpur. It is the

hotbed of extraordinary questions and spreading ambiguities since the day a mob

of over 200 women surrounded and lynched Akku Yadav in an open court. He was, by

all accounts, a serial rapist who had flaunted his immunity from the law for

almost a decade. They say he didn’t spare even the 10 year old, or the pregnant

woman. So, are the women who did their tormentor to death with stones, kitchen

knives, chilli powder, the victims or accused? Should they be punished for

taking the law into their own hands, or is it unfair to single them out — or

some of them, since only five were arrested and released on bail — in what is,

after all, a rotting criminal justice system? The system that allowed Yadav to

roam unchecked for years would have probably set him free again to commit more

heinous crimes.

These are questions that permit no instant or easy answers. Not everyone thinks

so, of course — not the battery of legal luminaries and women’s organisations

and activists who have immediately and unambiguously rushed their sympathies and

support to the women vigilantes of Kasturba Nagar. Yet, some things are easily

said: the loud solidarity that has been on display towards the women in the

lynch mob is a dangerous thing, it threatens to forge a social sanction for

murder. It is true that the women’s ordeal was horrible and that a system of lax

investigation machinery, poor forensic systems, embarrassing cross-examination

procedures and delayed judicial verdicts is guilty. But a case cannot be made

for victims to take the law into their own hands. More technically, the right to

self defence that many are citing is certainly not applicable to the lynching of

an accused in custody.

Perhaps the question from Nagpur must be reframed. It is not enough to ask

whether or not the women at Kasturba Nagar are guilty. It is more important to

ask whether we can indict them and go on as before. The message from Kasturba

Nagar is clear and urgent. The criminal justice system must be reformed and it

must be particularly sensitised to the victim who is a woman. The

criminal-police nexus must be submitted to stricter scrutiny. The courts must

deliver before justice delayed becomes justice denied.

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Forwarded by Ashok Bhaskar ' 84 - Article from Indian Express.com