“We will be filing our affidavit with the Supreme Court. We are also thinking of bringing a law to prevent mob... Read More

(This story originally appeared in on Aug 23, 2018)

Rajasthan is considering framing a law to curb increase in cases of mob lynching after discussions with legal experts and assessing existing laws which are in place to prevent such crimes, said state home minister Gulab Chand Kataria .

This comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s directives to the state government to file an affidavit with details of action taken in the Alwar lynching case in which Rakbar Khan was allegedly beaten by cow vigilantes on July 20.

The apex court has also issued directions to the government to provide preventive, remedial and punitive measures to deal with offences such as mob violence and cow vigilantism. In the past one year, Alwar has seen three deaths due to alleged cow vigilantism. Pehlu Khan and Ummar Khan were the other two victims of mob lynching.

“We will be filing our affidavit with the Supreme Court. We are also thinking of bringing a law to prevent mob lynching. However, we are yet to finalise its shape,” Kataria said.

He said that only framing such laws won’t guarantee that such incidents don’t recur. “We have Section 302 in law. But it doesn’t act as a deterrent to serious crimes like murder. We should take serious punitive action against such criminals to set an example,” he said.

The Rajasthan government has drawn flak from various quarters over slow progress in the Rakbar Khan case. The police has suspended its investigating officers and sent three policemen to the lines for serious lapses in judgement while handling the situation.

Rajasthan has shown initiative in promulgating some path-breaking laws in the country. It is the second state after MP to have promulgated a law for death penalty to child rapists. It is now setting up 35 courts to speed up trials of the accused charged under the POCSO Act.

