Ghazanfar Abbas, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, June 26: In wake of an unending chain of mob lynchings – the latest one occurred in train in Haryana three days before Eid – a civil society group has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring Manav Suraksha Kanoon (MASUKA – Human Safety Law) with immediate effect. The group has also said that if the government does not bring MASUKA by the end of June, thousands of people will start sit-in at PM’s residence.
Talking to IndiaTomorrow.net over the phone, entrepreneur and activist, Tehseen Poonawalla who is a member of the group said that MASUKA is needed as the cases of mob lynching are not stopping and no action is being taken.
“When Una happened last year the PM cried and said: Don’t kill Dalits, kill me. This business of PM deflecting the issues has gone on far too long. Those who are indulging in lynching should be put into jail. We are demanding MASUKA which makes lynching a non-bailable offence that includes judicial probe and life imprisonment for those who caught in lynching,” Tehseen Poonawalla said.
“If the PM does not implement MASUKA by the end of this month we will give a draft of law to him and the opposition including Chief Ministers of all states. We are also ready to discuss the law if govt. wants to amend it. Then if the PM does not pass the law in the Parliament, we along with all the families of the victims of mob lynching, over 20,000 agri and dairy farmers and around 10,000 cattle traders will together come to the PM residence to stay there with their cattle as nobody is secure, the only secure place is PM’s residence,” he said.
Tehseen has also made multiple tweets over mob lynching where he has tagged PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) and PM Narendra Modi in this regard.
“The only way to stop this #LynchRaj is to bring in #MASUKA or Manav Suraksha Kanoon. Will give @ narendramodi ji the draft copy this week”, tweeted Poonawalla.
“An E-Riksha driver who was the fan of Modi ji was also lynched when he tried to stop someone defecting urine on roadside. Question is why lynching is happening? Because the govt. is not responding,” Poonwala averred.
A civil society group was formed against growing culture of mob lynching early this month comprising of eminent faces including veteran journalist and former diplomat Kuldeep Nayar, academicians Prof. Apoorvanand Jha, Prof. Manoj Jha and Anil Chamadiya, political activist Tehseen Poonawalla, students leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid and Richa Sharma, Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay R. Hegde and social activists Jignesh Mevani and Wasiq Nadeem. They announced to launch the campaign against mob lynching.
In the last two years, over one dozen people have been killed in mob lynching in different parts of the country.
Recently on Thursday (22nd June) evening, a 16-year-old student named Junaid Khan was beaten and then stabbed to death by a group of men in the Delhi-Mathura EMU local train near Palwal railway station in Haryana. While on the same Thursday night in another incident Deputy Superintendent of Police Muhammad Ayub Pandit was lynched by a mob outside the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar deployed on official duty.
Earlier this month, Zafar Khan, 55, was allegedly lynched by staffers of Pratapgarh municipality in Rajasthan when he objected to them taking photos of women defecating in open.
In April in Rajasthan itself, dairy farmer Pahlu Khan was lynched by a brutal gang of Gau Rakshaks.
