One lynching an invitation to the next, says court

New Delhi:

Rejecting

the

bail plea

of

three men

accused of lynching a man after suspecting him to be a

child lifter

, a city court said if the

accused

were released, it would “constitute a failure of the court to begin the pushback against those locked in a battle with liberal and democratic ideals”.

Additional sessions judge Vishal Gogne observed, “Much like incidents of dowry deaths and offences against women are unhesitatingly identified and commented upon in judicial orders as a reflection of social malaise, the act of lynching must also be recognised as an expression of a creeping social reality. This reality indubitably is intolerance.”

The court also observed that action in such an incident was never taken in the heat of the moment and was “evidently conscious, premeditated and executed till the gory end”. It added that mob violence was an identifiable factor in determining aggravated gravity for the courts to decide the bail plea.

The judge also underlined that one lynching was an invitation to the next. “The courts cannot countenance any such othering or hate and must apportion their social sensitivity and judicial time to clamp down on this crime,” Gogne observed.

Dharmender, Munesh and Gajender had sought bail in a case filed under IPC Section 302 (murder) stressing their alleged roles in the lynching of 35-year-old Vijay Kumar shouldn’t be construed as one that led to the victim’s death. However, the order pointed out that the “macabre spectacle” was witnessed by at least 50 people and captured with “gruesome clarity” on a CCTV camera barely a few yards away from the place of incident.

Kumar was presumed by the accused and local residents in Delhi’s Durga Vihar to be a child lifter. The victim had been left to die. When police arrived, it took 15 minutes to untie him. No effort was made to check whether he was alive or to provide him first aid as police apparently treated him as a child lifter too and accepted his summary fate, the court observed.

“The video reveals the body to be stiff as it is lowered to the ground. It was still the gumption of the investigating officer to have stated in the chargesheet that the unconscious victim was taken to the hospital and declared dead on arrival,” the court said.

DCP (Southwest) was directed by the court to report whether steps had been taken for protection of the victim’s family members or witnesses. Besides, a notice was issued to Delhi government to report whether any scheme for compensation/interim compensation to the victims or next of kin in cases of mob violence/lynching had been framed.