India’s top court calls for new law to curb mob violence

Source: Associated Press

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s highest court on Tuesday asked the federal government to consider enacting a law to deal with an increase in lynchings and mob violence fueled mostly by rumors that the victims either belonged to members of child kidnapping gangs or were beef eaters and cow slaughterers.

The Supreme Court said that “horrendous acts of mobocracy” cannot be allowed to become a new norm, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

“Citizens cannot take law into their hands and cannot become law unto themselves,” said Chief Justice Dipak Misra and two other judges, A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, who heard a petition related to deadly mob violence. They said the menace needs to be “curbed with iron hands,” the news agency reported.

The judges asked the legislature to consider a law that specifically deals with lynchings and cow vigilante groups and provides punishment to offenders.

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Categories: Asia, India, Law, The Muslim Times

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